André Feitosa & Lia Krucken – A tree writes in the air

A tree writes in the air
by André Feitosa & Lia Krucken
Sphinx Ancestral Collective of Arts 
Brazil – Portugal – Germany

A tree writes.

She starts from the chlorophyll – “the first matter of a poem”[1].

She writes everywhere: in the landscape, in us, in the past-present-future.

And we, as artists, try to give visibility to this écriture, which can be understood as a diffused movement of reading and writing. This work with trees is based on an ancestral African ritual to clean spiritual energy of places that we want to develop in diverse parts of the world.

[1] “I found that, instead of focusing on the shadow of the aisle, I lay on my back, looking at the shimmering shadow, my regard could make the reverse path of light and land on the topmost branch of the tree and learn from it to produce chlorophyll – the first matter of the poem “. (from the original: “Descobri que se, em vez de me concentrar na sombra do corredor, me deitasse de costas a olhar a sombra rutilante, o meu olhar poderia realizar o caminho inverso da luz e pousar no ramo mais alto da árvore e aprender com esta a produzir clorofila — a primeira matéria do poema”.)
Llansol, Maria Gabriela. Onde vais, Drama-Poesia. Lisboa: Relógio d’Água, 200, p. 12.

The tree diary
(lyric)

The tree writes in the air
The message goes everywhere
Roots
Leaves

The tree writes beyond
I cannot see it but I feel
Blood
Bones

The tree writes a poem
Dark and transparent
Like eyes
I see through

The tree writes slowly
the sound flies fast in the corridors
Like mouths
I hear loud

There are things that we cannot talk
Then we sing
Then we dance

There are things
we sing
we dance

For the trees we dance
die Todten Reiten schnell

A page from the diary
(essay)

She is a Prunus, has dark trunks and parts that suffer. Some branches bloom. Her wine-colored leaves draw the sky and resemble those of a cherry tree: oriental cutouts in the landscape and silent logs.

Around the tree is the College of Arts, the former School of Medicine, the former Museum of Science. Everything – the large galleries, the old floors – is reflected in a crystal pendulum, laced in the tree. Suspended at eye level, the pendulum is a point of light. A discreet eye, perhaps. The feminine lives on it: all the trees in the name of this tree, all the women in one.

This tree writes everywhere. The writing runs along the sloping streets of Coimbra, squeezed, with slippery stones on those rainy days. (The writing) Strolls, in its acute and melancholy beauty, the little shops, the hands of the craftsmen, the strong accent of the florist (showing the plants):
“These are ‘defenders’. I offer them to you. ”
“They must dry for three days. Than you can put they put into soil. It protects energies. ”

The writing overwhelms, overlays. It is a call. She, the writing, does not ask me who I am, she immediately includes me in her ways, breaths, abysses. And around the tree, the waters: the Mondego River, the water of the body that is just born, the rain, the tears that can always come.

Writing or reading? I cannot say, bodies read and write – (in) the tree, (in) people, (in) us, in the stone columns. Writing in the upside-down world of the crystal pendulum: a mirror that reflects every passage, the coming alive, and happenings.

A tree in state of poetry: she is the landscape. She moves (me) in transparency of gardens, near to the ground. She calls presences from other places and waters from other seas.

Find more here: cargocollective.com/esfinge