Sam Francis
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// THE FERN AND THE LIGHT DANCE \\
Interdisciplinary Residency, Hospitalfield, Arborath, Scotland, November 2025Cut-fold A4 booklet
* Automatic writing from Thursday morning
*Text bits (arbitrarily) selected from green work in progress
*The fernery at Hospitalfield
*Light dancing on castle wall
in the castle or is it either way it’s grand as hell the rooms with their roominess with their loft their decadence their old-time pictures in the gallery not all white washed back then all gilt frames and deep paint soft cushioned wood walls high as the sky those lot posing lah-di-dah-di with stern portrait faces their decadent attire their formal positions and out in the corridors it is ghost-cold getting lost in the servant warrens looking for hot water bottles and flashbacks witnessed through the ephemeral dancing light show on the walls sun glinted domestic cinema if you’re lucky to catch it do we remember what it is to be found or discovered this way in a place like this through all the hush-hush the scrabble-scrabble the seekers the green tinted derière on the landing through the library window the ferns in the walled garden are autumn orange now and over the wall to the blinking sea animate in November sun and run down there run down there now find a hagstone on the beach pass the green grave find out what it is to go to pleasureland doop-do-whoo-whoo-whoo-whoo be amused be arcadian be running to get a smokie before they run out keep running a bit further each time tomorrow to the cliffs but back in the castle head down get back down to all that is green move words around take them apart shift them cut them up find the right place for their heart without severing it completely trying to see in colour not colour blind which makes the green heart red no that’s not it try instead to feel your way into it how can you see green better more clearly more lightly with more musicality stay with those green demons stay close-close but not so close as to not be able to see from a distance imagine you are on the roof of the castle looking down onto the page and the crunch-crunch of it and it’s time for lunch-lunch again and later on in the fern room it’s all fronds and spinny and how to respond to all the curling-ness try running your hands through their hair feathers feel the green lush-lush primordial soft hard pot maiden fern wall fern standing beneath umbrella fern we go under down into fern land fern tongue crinkle lips those big green sculptures and on their upside down the spores are ready for multiplication that dark art of propagation sacred to the druids they are they say put a fern in your pocket and you can walk invisible through the wedge gap in the rock wall that lets the light shine in and remember that their meaning is a feather