I am a Russian Doll
now—that doesn’t matter:
Land within land,
heart of the desert-born.
Sacred painting’s
yellow ochre
my skirt
trimmed with lichen.
Eyes like a lighthouse
these ambiguous beacons:
Something is lost
crossing the heather:
The craggy beauty
of an old woman’s throat,
the mellow man’s joy—
brief, repeating
Something is lost
to the morning’s mackerel
as they slap Halleluiah
Halleluiah
at the soles of my feet.
To journey on the backs
of fishes, to follow
the boats to England—
but to wait,
a core of bog-burned oak
paganishly burnished
by a fisherman’s will.
(From the book compilation for Faro International Art Symposium, 2004. With a single edit, because we learn as times change, as we all grow.)
Thank you for taking the time to read..
I’d love to hear your thoughts—please share them in the comments on Substack. And if you’ve written about this topic in a way that is in dialogue with this post, I invite you to link to your own post in the comments.
I’ll be back later this week with a process journal essay. Until then, may your week be filled with good moments.
Warmly,
Ren
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