Excerpts from "Vulpecula" by Carrie Redway
Synopsis
VULPECULA (the little fox) is a constellation within the Summer Triangle. Its brightest star is Anser (the goose). The original constellation was named VULPECULA et ANSER which contained a goose within the fox’s jaw. The constellation was later split into separate forms, but then merged back once again. However, when re-merged, et ANSER was dropped from the name, and the constellation is known today as simply VULPECULA.
In this work, I am having a conversation with the constellation Vulpecula about life, death, decay, and the cyclical nature of grief in its various forms. The decay of body, specifically due to a chronic scoliosis condition and its expression, is present throughout the work.
Artist Statement
Vulpecula began as a few poems about my degrading bones and joints, but as a death doula apprentice, it quickly evolved into a much more existential work as I expanded decay and grief into various levels: physical decay, emotional decay, and relationship decay. Animals, creatures, ancestry and mythology both help and hinder to sort through these various griefs and decays.
The words GNASH, HEX, PLUME and SCAVENGE are words that represent my personal grief process within these conversations.
— Carrie Redway
Excerpts
Run from the trees and to the waves-- there are beasts among us.
Wild among us. I will haunt you to your dying days. I will haunt
you to your dying days. I will haunt you to your dying days.
entrails and beaks and feathers and eyeballs painted the hay floor
red; I remember the chicken coop. Swinging the door open, my
child eyes land upon entrails and beaks and feathers and eyeballs
one plump chicken body left strung up in the corner, clean.
Decapitated. The fox got to her eggs first. I say to my body:
Creature, kneel, goddamn it and eat the dirt like a vulture suckles
the fat.
But I am strung up too. I have my own tenor. I am the chicken in
the coop. The rats sniff the air. It is as my little eyes saw--
prophecy.
*
My spine is an old woman's crooked cane. My vertebrae decay, oh
yes. A spider lives within the cushion of my joints within the clasp
of the fox’s jaw. Spinning tidy webs, homes for nesting in our
crevices and feasting on our marrow.
She grows; sucking until blood turns dry and flaky. My bones
curve to her whim. My vertebrae crumble to dust, like
Grandmother once said bones will do.
She rots. Grandmother and spider and me, skin melting into mine
into the leaves into fox fur into goose and chicken feather and my
body's scent carried on the feet of scavengers pawing at our flesh.
We melted further into the brush the rats carried away my eyes; the
foxes carried the soft meat of my lungs for their pups.
And we became new in them. Digesting in their bellies for their
strength. In Death, Renewal. Resurrection. Food for the pups.
Redemption is First Mother.
To purchase a copy of Vulpecula, you can contact Carrie Redway through thedna-arts.com.
Carrie Redway is a writer, mixed media artist and death doula apprentice in Seattle. Her work is inspired by myth, folklore and ritual. She is the author of two chapbooks: the short story, Queen Skulls, and the long-form poem, Vulpecula. Her short stories and poems have been featured in print and online in Really System, Rust + Moth, Moonchild Magazine, Occulum Journal, among others. Her death doula work is connected with art and writing through Thedna Arts. Find her online at carrieredway.tumblr.com or thedna-arts.com, and on Instagram @carrie_redway and @thedna.arts. To purchase a copy of Vulpecula, contact Carrie through thedna-arts.com.
