Here We Are

Are you still there -

perched upon your summit

watching as if a poet or artist

taking in the world (in its infinite parts)

in order to create it - in your own image

(playing God) - again

Are you (still) here -

with me, never gone

in the way our past life, warm & dark with leading

informs our waking?

The way a word left unsaid, resonates

along the hollow of a heart or head

until it finds its small grave...

And where am I -

never there (the apparition)

vanquished:

carrying that original sin,

the weight of which became a secret friend.

(am I) the dead which never died;

that small infinitesimal truth never told

(I never was)

Did you suffer for what was left (undone)

for the death of this

(for regret)

We all suffer.

Suffering bears new life - the nature of things -

(childbirth proves as much):

and then, the veil lifted

makes us forget -

all but the sweetness of this new life

- lying heavy in our waiting hands

(it’s all forgotten now)

And here we are.

~Brangwynne Purcell

mixed media, old book leather, thread, dictionary pages, button, ink, paper, found feathers & butterfly wing, victorian scrap, religious medallion, paper ephemera

9 cm x 14 cm

18 pages