Cecilia André
our times
i know a guy
who presses leaves together
with heavy stone weights
to make trays
he piles up
on the veranda
of his small tin shack
that backs on to a railway line
sometimes i help him work
or just sit near
watching him with his big green leaves
keeping out the day-time heat
writing my travelling words down
into a notebook
or dozing on a grass mat
next to where he stacks the trays
as day slides to evening
by light of lamp
he packs the trays into cardboard boxes
ready for a dawn ride on his pushbike
to wherever he goes
to drop them off
and collect money
we don’t speak a language the same
but our times flow easily
we laugh
make noises with tongues
click fingers
smile warmly
touch each other lightly
affectionately
in the cool of the night
we sit out the front
of where he lives and works
and he goes inside and makes hot sugary chai
and we drink it on the veranda
together
in shared silence
as trains roar behind us
shaking the tin shack
and us
Stephen House is an award winning Australian playwright, poet and actor. He’s won two Awgie Awards (Australian Writer’s Guild), Adelaide Fringe Award, Rhonda Jancovich Poetry Award for Social Justice, Goolwa Poetry Cup, Feast Short Story Prize and more. He’s been shortlisted for Lane Cove Literary Award, Overland’s Fair Australia Fiction Prize, Patrick White Playwright and Queensland Premier Drama Awards, Greenroom Best Actor Award and more. He’s received Australia Council literature residencies to Ireland and Canada, and an India Asialink. His chapbook real and unreal was published by ICOE Press Australia. He is published often and performs his work widely.
Cecilia André is a NYC painter descendant of Lebanese immigrants to Brazil. The poetics of intuitive colors guide her dynamic art production. In this series of oil paintings, stitching and weaving explore and breakup the traditional backgrounds. Currently color interplays with light in her installations at the Queens Botanical Garden Gallery. @cecilia_andre_art www.ceciliaandre.com