An advent calendar of poetry: December 3 | The Coast Halifax

An advent calendar of poetry: December 3

Halifax poet laureate Sue Goyette delivers her third daily poem between now and Winter Solstice.

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Editor's Note: Each day from December 1 -21, Halifax' poet laureate Sue Goyette will write a new poem to share with the city on The Coast's website and social media. "If I need this, I bet other people need this," she told us on day one—and we think she's right. In a year that's felt like a months-long dusk, this will be some light we can carry forward, together, until the days begin to grow again.
Here is her poem for December 3:

Goldfish love bubble curtains, goldfish expert Suzanne Constance tells us: a hose that sends bubbles carbonating in fish tanks. I can only imagine the pleasure, the shimmy of swim and gentle plorp of pop, the brief propulsion of escaped air. The wiggle, the squee. Plunge into the unknown, René Char wrote in the journal he kept during his time in the French Resistance. This unknown, he says, cuts deep. And here we are: up to our ears in it—the unknown and its cut. And the grieving, burying what we knew as normal. This mourning is no small thing. I do know that I breathe momentarily easier thinking about someone who has dedicated their life to be expert of a fish more like a Labrador dog than a fish, a fish that recognizes the hand that cares for it. Imagine being an expert of what brings you joy. Plunge into the unknown which cuts deep, Char wrote, and then: Compel yourself to whirl about. Are these the first questions we embark into this new dark with? What is my bubble curtain? What makes me whirl? What helps me breathe?

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