It mingles as I tarry here. Fence and branches joining what they distinguish. From here to there I yearn. Details all so near. In my reaching they grow hazy. I long for you. I follow. I wander. Toward you? From me? Out beyond?
There was a time. It’s lost its focus. Forward, back, I cannot tell. I am here. A something-is divides us. Even as it joins. I reach across. I feel you back. And yet.
Yet not. The moony sun illuminates. Draws attention. Drawing all the lines connecting us, all the angles between.
What we know for certain is the steady stream of life, the flood, the flow, replete with bits and currents. Immersion.
What is less clear is whether we are rising or falling, whether paradoxes hold true, what that might look like.
And if we’re swimming together, how that alters the land, changes the buoyancy, rearranges our standards of measure.
We – individuals – no longer a fixed point of reference.
Now “I” that formerly looked oh-so-much like a “1,” is just a needle in a flurry of dried whirling pines.
Rising up, rising down, in relation.
The self, the other, the flood.
In certain light, it shimmers. In little light it bleeds dark.
It’s not as if we’re provided decoders, infra-red goggles, enlightenment.
I’m as much in the sea of life as you.
We share, in this sense, an equal, fluid, ground.
And not as something to step up or out of.
The self, the other, surround – weighted flotation devices.
I’m in, at a kind of “over here.” So are you.
There is no escape. We sink. We rise.
N Filbert 2012
(My apologies – these pieces have proven very difficult to photograph in a way that presents the depth of layering and colors truly present. These are fairly large oil paintings created of Autumnal colorings and glow, many more greens and yellows, oranges and hues filling out the originals. It is painstaking to present them here struggling with glares and digitalia in a way representative. Forgive me, and if you are able come see the originals through the month of November at Mead’s Coffee House in Wichita, KS – they are rich to behold!)
About running small. Over a surface made of paint. Exhilerating lostness. It is then I know texture. Arms draped over a streaking swell. Scritches and scumbles underfoot. Are there this many colors in the sea? Splattering like sparrows. Am I getting the picture? I lie down. Cairns and edgings against my back. What seemed soft – crisp and poky as briars. What looked hard and smooth gives like dried glue. I scurry in the trenches left by brush. Spin through dips and curls. A painting is a planet I inhabit. Directed through the paths of subtlest vein. To explore I engage. Guard asks that I step away.
A couple of days ago I reblogged Searching to See‘s incredible posting “What Once Was Here.” Their pictures lived on and wriggled their way into my psyche, so I asked if they would be open to me composing some paragraphs responding to the images. What follows is the result of that…
What Once Was Here images – Emily and Alex Hughes texts – N Filbert
What’s left hanging, a dangling or loosened shadow, often ends determining. A note you left with simple instruction opened on unprepared mystery. Unable to handle and afraid of the dark, tiny conduits tunneling everywhere. The twine wobbly and knotted, but the lines of the threshold so clear. When things are left hanging, though exciting and ominous, possibilities frighten. The key to what once was here is risk.
Polysemic Stupor 