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chronicles of light



perhaps it is this unfolding blizzard
with its noiseless drifts of unending
white that obscure a frozen lake from
all geographied expressions, or how it
fills my recent footprints with fresh
snow as if they never existed, erases
white impressions as if to rewrite all
my previous points of orientation.
maybe it is the sting of cold coupled
with the non-migratory fact that my
uncovered skin gets layered by an icy
spray flung wide from wings above;
their whir is incessantly at war with
a winter wind that grips and presses
feathered bodies to a single airborne
spot, and hovering there, my beloved
geese, hang within arm's reach. or
is it their proximity that proves
black-webbed feet to be neatly
tucked into downy under-bellies
during windy flight. what is it
that inspires?

these curiosities are not unlike the lack
of shadows everywhere, this monochromatic
continuum of horizoned white, swans lifting
high into a grey-light sky with nothing tracing
their lines of flight across the ground below.
or any other unconventional beauty that
urges something intimate, like the soft
contrast of a candle flame that flickers
one chiaroscuro-ed thought into the next.
stopping time by thinking past the biting
cyrstal-tones of cold, the storm unfolds
an invitation to rewrite history with warm
flames, and while standing there on ice,
how easy it becomes to conjure chronicles
of light, a study that will paradoxically
preface origins.

mine will be an illustrious thesis filled
with certain desires that bridge dark gaps
of unknowing with undisputable facts.
perhaps a current fascination with candles
is what entices me to drip the history of
illumination from a pen and then, to extract
the invention of wax from nights much
blacker than the Middle East is now.

it will be an exhaustive ten volume epistle
written to the light of the past, or, if stated
in more post modern terms, to infinitive light,
to light-becoming.

a history of the world-revived-through-
the-development-of-invented-light will
undoubtedly grow into a comprehensive
study that unapologetically stakes its
originary claim on the Ancient Egyptians
who carried rushlights, torches. I will
describe how these Ancients first create
candles by soaking the pithy cores of
reeds in molten tallow ('til the Romans
follow suit with cattle and sheep suet:
imagine the smell). at this juncture, I
may dwell momentarily on the phonetics
of the phrase "sheep suet", foot-noting
its sonority, how it dances off the tongue,
allthewhile never forgetting the Asian
experience of speaking with more jaw
than tongue, and noting how this habit
contrasts sharply with the inclination
of all western languages to revel in
tongued annunciations. for this reason
and many others, I like the tongue.
but this study will shine with a light
poesis that also befalls Plato's Phaedrus
when he writes it, wet ink on parchment
and shifting shadows lost in unwritten
corners.

so

while standing headlong in a canadian
storm and repeating the afore-mentioned
alliterations just to memorize their
movements in the mouth, I map it out,
my history of the world revived by light,
an ambitious study that will ultimately
hail as a beacon of historico-logical research.
and even though I`ll note the invention of
fire in my preface, the concluding chapter
will toast the benefits of electricity, pay
tribute by chronologically connecting
flames to fibre optics without the crutch
of too much techno-jargonese, thereby
seamlessly progressing the story of
man-made light beyond the invention
of lightbulbs (in 1859) towards the
the cool glow of strobing screens as
a contemporary source of illumination
(and also the means, both metaphorical
and otherwise, by which post-postmodern
scribes keep vigil in the dark).

however, the intervening years will be what
sustains my enduring interest, and specifically,
that era of the Middle Ages when beeswax is
discovered to burn clean and pure, appreciated
for its non-smokey flame and un-acrid odour.
the quality of shadows will be compared in
pre and post beeswax civilizations, beeswax
extracted from honeycombs that retain a
lasting scent (and a welcome consequence
to the pungence of the 14th C). but this
study will also capture the magic of shadows
on-the-move through castle corridors, their
mystery and momentum, futile spills of wax
on stone and any other tonal gradations that
might lead to the capture of Durer's plates,
his hand rapidly engraving copper with a
burin, evenly darkening his hard ground
with a candle flame and pulling one wet
print after another from a press into the
golden light of eurocentric art history.

the oddity in this study will undoubtedly
remain with the late 18th C whaling industry
and how it evokes the first major change in
candlemaking since the Middle Ages, captures
science at its most grotesque when it discovers
how to extract spermaceti, a wax obtained by
crystallizing sperm whale oil, odourless and
unbendable in summer heat. good god; the
ethical outrage of stealing whale sperm for
the sake of reading in bed. there will also
be brief excursions into American Colonial
bayberry candle making, that tedious task
displayed in complex contrast to the advent
of parafin, followed by the assemblage of
parafin with stearic acid to increase its
melting temperature. but be forewarned,
this study will parse the merits of crude
oil and meat production, pros and cons,
concluding with an evocative question:
what happens when we run out of oil?
further implications will follow, some
concerning eco-poetics, and all this
while standing in a winter storm,
lakeside, and exploring white.