I finished this piece over a month ago, but have had some issues with getting things photographed due to my camera not working and the weather not cooperating (to say the least!). It's hard for me to describe what this piece is about, so I'll just say it's about essence. I was going to title it Between the Veils, but maybe Essence would be a better title.
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ingredients: vintage book cover, pages, and spine; image transfer, drawing, collage, stitching, feathers, watercolor pencils
Bone
by Mary Oliver
ingredients: vintage book cover, pages, and spine; image transfer, drawing, collage, stitching, feathers, watercolor pencils
Bone
by Mary Oliver
1.
Understand, I am always trying to figure out
what the soul is,
and where hidden,
and what shape
and so, last week,
when I found on the beach
the ear bone
of a pilot whale that may have died
hundreds of years ago, I thought
maybe I was close
to discovering something
for the ear bone
2.
is the portion that lasts longest
in any of us, man or whale; shaped
like a squat spoon
with a pink scoop where
once, in the lively swimmer's head,
it joined its two sisters
in the house of hearing,
it was only
two inches long
and thought: the soul
might be like this
so hard, so necessary
3.
yet almost nothing.
Beside me
the gray sea
was opening and shutting its wave-doors,
unfolding over and over
its time-ridiculing roar;
I looked but I couldn't see anything
through its dark-knit glare;
yet don't we all know, the golden sand
is there at the bottom,
though our eyes have never seen it,
nor can our hands ever catch it
4.
lest we would sift it down
into fractions, and facts
certainties
and what the soul is, also
I believe I will never quite know.
Though I play at the edges of knowing,
truly I know
our part is not knowing,
but looking, and touching, and loving,
which is the way I walked on,
softly,
through the pale-pink morning light.