A Flickering in the Midday Silver

From the series "A Flickering in the Midday Series" selected for the 2024 Critical Mass Top 200.

Beyond the pane
a glimmer,
barely perceived
yet still
it draws my gaze.

A flickering
in the midday
silver.

A calling
from me to you,
who is always
leaving.

In the space of just a few short weeks in the Spring of 2024, I lost both my father and my brother, one was expected, the other not. This body of work was made soon after that time whilst on a residency in Italy, in the first week I had to fly home for the second funeral in two months.

During this time, I threw myself into my writing and photography, trying to process everything and find my equilibrium. I was still reeling, trying to regain a foothold, to reassert myself in a world where I felt the walls were crumbling.  But as I soon discovered, grief isn’t linear. There is no moment when you finally come to, get over it, work it all out and come through the other side. I’m still there, managing from one moment to the next, feeling everything just as keenly.

It is the physical intensity of this sense of loss that I wanted to capture in these photographs and in the writing that accompanies them. How you feel loss in the body, in your stomach and on your skin, how you become acutely aware of the fragility and the terrible tenderness around you.  It is about the futile, but unavoidable and ongoing attempt, to hold on to love, even after you know it has already gone.

I am so thrilled that this work has been selected for the Critical Mass 2024 Top 200. Many many thanks to the jurors for this recognition.

View the full series.

Touchstones

My good friend and I Dawn Surratt began a project together when this pandemic began. Sharing images and poems, creating diptychs and inventions to help us navigate this time together. You can check it out at Touchstones or follow us on Instagram @touch__stones. It’s been such a support and inspiration working with Dawn through this time. Here’s my most recent post.

I lie awake, alert
to the scritchscratch
of the night raiders
launching their assault
against the stoic coop.
Their small babyhands, human-like;
panda eyes, needle teeth.

Night thoughts -
like drunken flies
circling the light,
can find no purpose
or direction,
just random, panicked,
instinct.

I turn, and hear
a rustle in the woods,
my eyes snap, open.
thinking not thinking —

Breathe.

Dilemmas,
like pebbles in my mouth
rolling over and over;
my tongue
smoothes their contours
with relentless
consideration,
reconsidering.

Today, tomorrow
then, now, before, after,
this, that, how, which way —
when?

No answers
from the night.
Just the leaves,
whispering their lullaby
for the dreamless.

Can you Imagine?

Can you imagine
your son,
with his neck
under the knee,
as his breath came in shorter
and he begged for release?
Or your daughter,
asleep in her bed,
as the door came down
and she woke in
terror to the 
shootingshouting roaring 
through her ears?
Or your cousin, out running,
brought down
in his prime,
for no 
reason?

Or a child,
a young child,
your
child —
beaten,
on the side
of the road,
like she was nothing
like she was not
even
a
thing?

You cannot imagine,
because this,
should be
unimaginable.

But we are

watching 
watching
watching

We should be

listening 
listening 
listening 

For the time for watching
is over,
and the time for acting
is now.

---

This poem is available as a limited edition print with 100% of proceeds going to the NAACP Legal Defense Fund.

---

How to Make this Moment the Turning Point
Barack Obama

How to Support the Struggle Against Police Brutality
The Cut, New York Magazine

When Would We be ready?

You followed us
to the barn,
late at night.
We played pool
and you slept,
under the table,
barely lifting
your head.

You still ran for the ball,
slower now -
a slight roll to your gait.
Arthritis, we thought.

You swayed as you stood,
steadily watching us,
deciding when
we would be ready
for you to leave.

Our brother,
getting older.
We still thought
we had years
to squander.

You walked with us,
around the field,
swam doggily in the pond,
that one, last, time.

Then you laid down
and would not get up,
would not move for a treat,
nor thump your tail,
at the sound
of your name.

And we knew.
that you were done,
that you were ready
to leave us
to feel you gone.

A Gift for Evening

Finally it is evening.
In the kitchen,
the children chatter,
Outrage, then
laughter breaks
over the dishes.
I am washing up,
bent over, 
wiping away, 
the endless remains
of dinner.
We careen through chaos, 
in each others way —
yet pulled together,
like random space junk
orbiting the sun.
Intent upon routine,
I find comfort in
this domestic rhythm. 

Through the window, 
the Spring light strikes 
a stand of trees, 
the sky behind them,
thunder-dark.
The lone birch, 
where the swing 
hangs vacant,
is lit, as if by torchlight.
All alive in limb and sinew
it calls on us to notice.
We pause and stare
at this, the world cracked open,
light pours in
silver-swift.

Just as quick, 
the moment’s gone, 
an evening gift
we hold forever. 

Yesterday

I came in 
from the garden,
my hands dirty,
my nails, soiled, 
and I wept.

For I’d been lost, 
in the brambles,
in the sweet
now of doing, 
and had forgotten
for a moment,
that the world 
was breaking, 
and the people 
were dying.

Then the memory came, 
like a wave 
crashing over me,
and I couldn’t 
breathe 
for thinking,
of the world 
that is breaking, 
and the people 
that are dying.

But I returned
to the garden,
to the sweet 
now of doing,
and I breathed the air,
and I smelled the earth
and I lost myself
in the brambles.

Sheltering in Place

I went to the store
just once
this week.
And even then
I didn’t go in,
but pulled up,
curbside,
rolled down my window,
like a furtive user,
collecting my stash 
of flour,
quinoa,
eggs and 
beans —
the staples
that hold us 
together.

Was it only
last week,
that we met
for walks,
keeping our 
distance,
playing it safe?
Now the parks are
closed.
We are staying home,
close to home,
keeping home
close.

The Note

I found this poem today, after talking with friends about the power of lists in our lives. I know when I die my children will have my notebooks, filled with lists of my daily chores, struggles and intentions and through these, perhaps more than anything, they will have a sense of how I lived my days.

This poem was inspired by William Carlos Williams This is Just To Say

The Note

Today I found a note,
tucked in a journal, 
it exposed a chink in time
that winked at me 
with treacherous mischief.

Blue Hill, it said.
Mozzarella, 
coffee,
sopresssata, 
avocados.
And don’t forget ,
nasturtiums.

A life distilled 
in a simple list 
of kindness
and indulgence.

The Gift

What does it mean?

— to carry absence

in the marrow of

your white-stark

naked self? 

The neverwillbe

lingers,

skulking at the edges

of my story. 

Loss is a gift

to sharpen 

my teeth on,

lest I forget —

the tangysweet taste

of the possible.  

Picking Up the Pieces

I saw today

that you had made something

beautiful.

And I knew what it had cost you

that beauty.

Too much, almost,

for one person

to contain.

It was only yesterday 

that we wrote

of the dreary now of waiting

For the spark to break

the heavy spell.

I’m trying to see 

the road to there 

from here.

I said.

Let’s leave now

you replied.

We’re better there.

For Lori
October 2018

Pool Mornings

The woman to my right wears a pink swimming cap, goggles and big yellow flippers on her hands. They make me think of ducks and waddling, but she is smooth in the water, efficient and undaunted. The man on my right wears a weathered swim cap complete with stars and stripes,  faded and clearly past its prime.  As I make my way slowly past him, he pauses, looks at me a beat before turning.  I look away too, swimming on, gamely eyeing the clock and making promises.  When done, stars and stripes rises up exhaling, taking up space, expanding. He shakes the water from his body like an old bear after fishing in the river.  Flipper lady has done three lengths to my every one, miraculously I am undeterred.  For now this is my solace. It clears my head and I feel the fog of morning shifting, the dirty business of breakfast's chaotic squabbling recedes in my rear view. For now there is only cool water and rhythmic observation. 

The Easter Eggs

You had hidden the eggs.
Tiny orbs of sweetness
wrapped in shiny plastic
with silver twinkling
at the edges
blue and pink

You were so delighted when I found them.
Suddenly we were young again
and you had hidden them
just for me

That was us, then
promises wrapped in fancy paper
hidden and hard to find

The Willows

I never knew you, 

yet I feel you in

each room that is

a hallowed space,

unchanging and

remembered. 

Sacred.

I hear you,

whispering

through the

wallpaper that is

frayed and steeped in

melancholy at your

leaving.

I see you leaning in -

listening to the ladies laughter

Your quick hands

made light work,

Fashioning small renovations, 

of disorderly lives.

Snip snip.

I look where you looked

and through the picture window

past the bird house

and the tree, 

I wonder at

your presence

in my heart.



 

Night Cat

She smells of the night,
dashing in
fur flying
eyes wild
high on mouse
or some such.

On her paws
she brings the dirt
deep and rich
with secrets
I am not privy to.

I hold her to me
and feel her bones
like twigs in cotton wool
and feel her tiny heart
exploding stars within her.

In daytime she lies languid
vanquished of urgency
She watches me
her sleepy eyes indifferent,
mostly.
 

NEST

It is a thing of beauty
Of paper, finely-wrought
it nestles, woven, there
amongst the branches
solitary yet
peopled by industry

A study in contrasts
it moves me for
I too have sought haven
in fragile places
and like the nest
hold fast

OF GRACKLES

The grackles were not
made of flesh
and bone
They had no feathers
nor silvered tips
They were made
of wood and
splinters

In my fitful sleep I
saw through them
My eyelids flickering
I watched them
cackling and snapping
bickering around the
open fire

Fearsome gossips
scratching at the dirt
waiting for their
meat

For Certainty

Not quite fog this
thick and sodden
blanket that
envelops me.

The very temperature of
blood, it comforts me, 
but leaves me
damp with maudlin
melancholy.

These climes are
made for
thought ful ness
and
quiet resolve,
for certainty.

The earth
is oozy underfoot.
Like cake
left out too long,
she has begun to
founder.

And yet, 
she is alive with
feedlings,
emergent and
determined.
Their pace a pulse
to mark the beat
of our dark histories
passing.

ANCHOR

My husband asked me for an anchor.
What gift is this to ask a wife?
He laughed, but still
persisted.
Where we are now, we begin again.
Through roiling seas
this holds us fast.
Holds us fast
to the bedrock
buried deep
in the waters of our
shared ancestry.

For Penny

I think of you,
my sister lost to me.
I wonder
at your arrival.
What did our mother wear?
Was her hair matted against her brow?
And when she saw you,
did she gather you into her arms?
Could she love you for a moment, 
a singular moment when
she looked to you to breathe, 
to cry?
But there was nothing.
A life cut short too soon.
I cannot ask, for this is not my mourning.
But still I feel it.
A soft keening in the night hours.
She mourns you still
with her unacceptable anguish.
I feel it too, but lesser of course.
For with you, there could be no me
And so in a way I am grateful.

Sleek as an Otter

Sleek as an otter
your fishy flesh flashes
quick silver in the hot light of noontime.
In the murky dark your skin stands stark against it,
before disappearing once again.

You are
in your element.
Undeniable.
There is no you, no it, no other.
Just light, movement, splash and sinew.
You slip through my fingers.
Just when I thought I had you
you are gone.