The Bridge

And if I peer out from umbral shadows
to meet my gaze through the mirror’s eye

instead of seeing a jaw that was once my father’s
scars one time sutured with homespun haste
eyes coloured by past pleadings

I ask what else
is looking back at me,
from beyond my earthly form?

pause, imbibe

quivers of subtle recognition
black nose of hedgehog trembles in breeze
wafting in from apparent emptinesses

flecks of a love forgotten
prickle unaccustomed skin

“Remember me?” He asks slowly
in silent touch

my eyes fumble with white canes
finding only deeper darknesses

His presence, solid yet not
solid, limestone tiles under my feet
cliff-side mountain’s edge in my mind

Dare I fall into Him?

And what if I steal just a glance
with a borrowed superhero’s X-ray eye

to test whether He too
will let me down?

I resist against the Father
should have iced those bruises long ago

Can I reach beyond your chameleon thoughts, father,
beyond what you were driven to do
yet ought not to have done?

Can I find translucency in our distortions
nebulous entanglements that bond us, crack

open crevasses
erupting onto manicured greens?

I have to forgive you now

your waves, invisible yet thick in my breath, father,
my organs ache for You, Father, to enwind them

And if I trust, what I cannot see, to hold me
while I let you, father, go?

sand-stripped raw naked
no pockets of innocence to hide in
no blazer of scorn to pull tight around me

And if I allow myself to feel indeed not alone
despite drowning in rivers of hollowness?

And if every time I brave meeting my own gaze
in that bathroom mirror with tiles underfoot,
I see Him exulting behind my pupils of pitch?

And if I could be the riverbanks for His strength,
exuberance of unjudged life,
would each day breathe me differently?

And if?
for my father too?

Artist’s statement

I am very interested in exploring the interface between the experience of human emotions in our physical forms, the psychological concepts we've invented to name and point to certain aspects of human experience, and the undeniable yet unseen intelligence that somehow, somewhere exists and seems to penetrate and colour our three-dimensional, lived experience. The friction points and all that lie between these states fascinate me, as does the creative process of how and why a piece evolves as it does. This piece started with the idea of looking in a mirror and trying to see what was beyond our physical form, and evolved from there.