the hurt
will pass
i no longer
hold it close
i let it go
with softness
and patience
and love
soft
poetry
Saltkisses Misses
I miss your saltkisses, your cold caress. As I welcome winter and I’m reminded to rest, I will come to you with arms open wide, ready to kiss the day with you again.
A Deep Attachment To This World
“The most sublime act is to set another before you.” William Blake, Proverbs of Hell
Let me honour you. Hold you up to the light. Explore, examine and praise your simple beauty, your blessed grace.
Shiny, hard nut. Chestnut. Conker. Like my heart, you will soften and give under the right conditions, under the right love.
Who do you belong to? Where do you belong? I ask you, but really I ask myself.
It’s rude to stare, to touch but I’m attached to you whether I want to be or not. We are both citizens of the Earth. This Earth.
I’m not alone in this world I’m connected to you. Chestnut to brown. Brown to chestnut. Skin to skin. We are kin.
And I feel your hurt too.
In the Earth of her Voice is the Remnants of Fire
If I allowed curiosity and love to seep through the wounds, I wouldn’t be here now at the page trying to make sense of it.
A black girl walks through the meadow, enters the dark woods and forfeits her life. And I can’t but think if she was white …
Trust. Always difficult for me to hold, like light on burnt leaves. Like the coming of winter any day now.
The race talk, an accumulation of cautionary tales told through time, she, with earth in her voice, filled the void of rage with what was right for her soul. Joy.
My Mother was the Moon, the Earth, the Song
As I pull into the roadside drenched in memory, I practice breathing. Cycle through the minutes trying to gain ground.
She was silence behind her smiles. Behind her ample flesh. I burnt down our bonds because she dropped before her time.
I’ve too much fire to ever accept her truth. Too much sense to feel the moon held her fullness.
Late into the night standing by the window, she waited for my return. Without fail. I took her love and joy without a backward glance.
I am dark. Too dark. But meaning comes with the light. My own light, learning to shine from the inside out.
I wish she had her chance. I take her picture sitting in the grass amongst the trees and seal it into memory.
The earth she could not give me. She didn’t know how as she laughed her soul into existence.
I am red. All of it. And not at all. But with eyes wide open, body claiming space daily, I listen to her song and bathe in the moonlight.
In the dark with my own sacredness
So I close my eyes. Allow the dark to fill. Feel flaky dust around my ankles and know they are ashes.
Everything has burnt down. To leave fertile ground from which to stand. To rise. But when?
I am indigo. I am not indigo. The stars are not enough. And yet they draw my eyes and heart.
I came close to love reaching from the shadows of a mountainside where women of my family fell.
Memories and pain etched on the skin of my bones, I know what I need and want but I don’t know how or who.
Raw, I cannot dream enough colour to hold me. And yet ripe full of longing, I walk the landscape holding my power with an open heart and listen to the blood rain blooming.
Capture: The Country Journal of a Blackwoman
Archive: a Country Journal of a Blackwoman
Right now my practice is on display within The BALTIC: Centre for Contemporary Art.
As I was out of the country when the group exhibition, Hinterlands, launched on Friday 22 October, 2022, I managed to get into seeing it after such event the following week.
I really didn’t know what to expect as you visualise the end result, the culmination of months of hard work, dreaming and winging it. But to actually see it all come together in a white cube space is another thing.
I visited my archive last week, with my daughter, excited and nervous and unsure. I got to see The Country Journal of a Blackwoman(Northumberland) exhibited on level 3 of The BALTIC. I was shocked and surprised to see my work out of context within this space. It was an emotional as well as nerve wracking experience.
Because of my absence, I had to leave instructions about the installation as well as extensive notes and labels for each art piece. There are about 50 items if not more within this creative archive. It’s to be expected that things got lost or mislaid in translation. So my focus for this trip was to make sure everything was how I wanted it to be.
After some discussion and sending of correct audio files, everything is now complete and as I want it to be presented to the world.
I’m not sure how I feel that during the launch of the whole exhibition, that things were wrong or missing. But I do know that after seeing everything in terms of my contribution and making things right after my visit, I felt great relief and was able to enjoy the achievement. It was also weird to be there at the same time as seeing peel interacting with my work. I’m not sure I want to have many experiences like that as their reactions did affect my state of mind, pride and achievement. And it would be very unsetting, I feel, to be there and witness someone laughing and disrespecting my work. I think this is something I need to gain a thicker skin for. But right now, my skin is thin for a number of reasons, tat I might explore here in time.
I know I have to return now, to take in the rest of the group show as well as the rest of The BALTIC’s exhibitions for this season, as this is a strong presentation.
I’m honoured to be showing at the same time with them.
Of course more reflection and images to come around this achievement.
HINTERLANDS
22 October 2022 – 30 April 2023, BALTIC: Centre for Contemporary
I am learning to be an inner healer.
I am learning to heal myself.
I am leaning to turn pain into medicine.
I may be at another crossroads. And I may to taking longer to get up
as I am getting older and in need of rest.
But I am learning to walk in uncharted territory.
I am learning to let responsibility go.
I am learning to let the guilt go.
I’m learning to not be afraid of death.
I’m learning to accept myself.
I’m learning to love myself.
I’m learning to not limit myself.
I’m learning to be free.
I’m learning to fly.
I’m learning to shine my light for myself first and foremost.
I’m learning to shed past selves, past skins, past traumas,
in order to let my light shine brighter.
Living Wild Studios 