There Remains the Mystery and A Cold Spring Runs

There Remains the Mystery

LISTEN to the blog by clicking the DOWNLOAD link above

"There Remains the Mystery" oil on Oleopanel, 11 x 14 inches.  

"A Cold Spring Runs" oil on crescent board, 11.5 x 15.5 inches.  These items are unmounted and unframed.

What should we believe in next?

Daniel Boone’s brother’s grave says, Killed by Indians.
We point at it; poke at it like a wound— 
history’s noose.

Below the grave, a cold spring runs. 
Clear, like a conscience.
Now, I’m alone.
Only me and the white bones of an animal’s hand 
revealed in the silt.
There remains the mystery of how the pupil devours 
so much bastard beauty.
Abandoned property.
​

This land and I are rewilding.
A bird I don’t know, but follow with my still living eye. 
The day before me undresses in the wet Southern heat:
flower mouth, 
pollen burn, 
wing sweat.
I don’t want to be only the landscape: the bone’s buried.
Let the subject be
the movement of the goldenrod, the mustard,
the cardinal, the jay, the generosity.
I don’t want anything,
not even to show it to you--

the beakgrass, bottlebrush, dandelion seed head,
parachute and crown,
all the intention of wishes, forgiveness,
this day’s singular existence in time,
the native field flourishing selfishly, only for itself.

The Rewilding,  ADA LIMÓN
​

A Cold Spring Runs

What should we believe in next? ​  Limon asks us.  

It is a good question.  Apropos after all that has transpired in just one week.

I don't have answers.  But I know it is important to ask myself the question and then to listen patiently, even as I find myself  inexorably drawn into my own rewilding.

---

About the art:  "There Remains the Mystery" is the first piece in an experiment with new substrates from  Artefex (https://artefex.biz/).   This one is on Oleopanel, lead primed smooth.  And it is dreamy to work with.  Moving swiftly and intuitively, letting brush, palette knife and fingers run free while remembering the wild places my feet have trod.   Blissful.  

​"A Cold Spring Runs" is a paint-over on crescent board.  Using the same techniques except adding chopsticks and paper towels to increase texture and variation, allowing the wild child free reign in the paint.

---

The November Reader Giveaway continues!  Leave a comment on any of this month's blog posts to enter.  One (or more) lucky readers will win an original piece of art FREE!