A lot of experimentation in this one. The body is constructed from a wire skeleton wrapped in wax paper, which I had hoped would have more translucency but because his head, a rock , is so heavy it was difficult to photograph him. The gold and green thing on his shoulder is a tiny parrot that probably fell off of a christmas ornament. Thank you to Joe and Kayla who took me to comanche hill yesterday where we found this and many other beautiful rocks.
Sketches
pencil sketches etching
a face into the surface,
generic and gray at first but
turning quickly into something
so familiar and so real.
Your face looks back at mine
out of the pile of lines and smudges,
like a photograph or the reflecting pool in Lion King
showing another face but a greater truth, the lines
they've morphed into the face
I picture every morning when I remember your name
as it is whispered through the air when I wake up,
floating through the open window
on an animated breeze that circles about the room
before settling over my head for me to see
your face there giggling,
that chuckled that put you to sleep and woke you up
Always laughing through life
and wherever that took you.
Through adventures in the trees
and past storybooks and scraped knees,
the laugh carried you to and from school
and up and down hills.
Baby boy you'd try to hide sometimes in an
igloo made of snow or in that cubbyhole beneath the porch
but when we'd call your name in search of the sun,
we always knew where you were by the laugh alone,
even if you hadn't left that trail of cookie crumbs
or army men toys trailing behind you
a map and a key to your little boy world,
the solution to the equation that equaled all the laughter.
Waking up night after night to those giggles,
quiet at first until you woke up and saw me sitting
there next to you, where I'd been waiting for when you
couldn't keep that joy inside anymore,
the little laugh turning into waves and waves of it,
we'd laugh together
until you laughed yourself to sleep once more.
and grow heavy in my arms until I came to know the exact
moment you let go. And my arms would tingle
as they lost feeling as if they were laughing too hard with you.
What did you laugh at all day, and
where did all that joy go?
It went away with you I guess,
I keep searching for the trail you must have left behind,
maybe one day I'll find it.
I listen for the telltale giggle at every turn
but for now I can still hear it whispered in the breeze.
