During Autumn and Winter...
Every morning I arrived in the barn,
to feed the animals;
A donkey and three goats.
- And the cat was also always there -
I cleaned up – and then I would remain for a while
– listening to the peaceful sounds of their chewing.
Then I would walk through the garden,
and every morning I would pass through the little forest –
and stay a while…
- Always thinking of my mother;
Trying to grasp that she was no
longer at the end of the telephone line –
Never more would I hear her voice
Never more see her face,
And her eyes glowing with life
And her hands would never more reach
out for mine.
Days
becoming weeks…. becoming months….
One day I suddenly had the idea that I wanted to make a loom
- In the forest
- And I started cutting
threads…
For every thread that I unwound,
I thought about my mother
- No longer walking
on this planet earth.
No longer there
At the end of the line
And so I cut the thread
And then I started again
Another line of thought
About my mother
- No longer here
No longer there
At the end of the line
And so I thought agian -
and cut it
And I tied it up
Along with all the other threads
all the other thoughts -
On a branch between two trees
And to each thread
- Each line of thought
–
I fastened a stone
Down there
On the ground
I thought of my mother laughing
And I thought of her crying, too
I tied every thought to the branch
And another stone
- As I thought how she
loved this life
And I thought of how small she’d appeared
As she lay there that day
In a coffin
- Where is she now?
Then one day
The loom appeared
All the threads
And the thoughts
were there
And every day I returned
To my atelier
and I would make one more face
- And another –
As I’d seen her
In that coffin that day
And every time
I closed her eyes
As I held my attempt to remember her face in my hands…
'Nothing'
(Oil on canvas, 60 x 50 cm)
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