Wilson's Bowl

A pleasant day on Salt Spring Island where we saw Wilson's Blow, a Phyllis Webb art exhibition at the library and a photography exhibition at Artspring.

A poem by Phyllis Webb titled The Bowl.
This is not a bowl you drink from
not a loving cup
This is meditation's place
cold rapture's.
Moon floats here
belly, mouth, open one-eye
any orifice
comes to nothing
dark as any mask
or light, more light / is
holy cirque.
Serene, it says silence
in small fish
cups a sun
holds its shape
upon, the sea
howls, 'Spirit entered
black as any raven.'
Smiles -
and cracks your smile.
Is clean.


The bowl is named after Wilson Duff a Canadian archaeologist, cultural anthropologist, and museum curator. He committed suicide in his faculty office with a shotgun on August 8, 1976. The subsequent death of Lilo Berliner, a correspondent of Duff who left their letters on the doorstep of poet Phyllis Webb, led to the creation of the memorial poetry sequence "Artifacts" in the collection Wilson's Bowl (1980).

The bowl is on the bottom right of the photograph.


Indian Petroglyphs of the Pacific Northwest, Beth Hill and Ray Hill, Hancock House, 1974

Thanks for the congratulations on reaching 1500 blips.