I realize this poem may feel a little dark and despairing. I’m hoping the paradoxical sense of transcendence will come across as well.
Shadow
A blank philosophy
filling the wounded spots
shields her invisible threads
with so many mysterious whispers.
From the unseen to the known,
a path is carved
in pure uncertainties.
Hunger
echoes the hollow.
The bottomless pit,
appendage of my father,
rolls out a black carpet
of useless, toiling ways.
If I told you how the wind,
in deep, encrusted caves,
moves in reeking stutters,
obliterates the culmination of
years of brave defiance,
would you see
with eyes of sorrow,
or hear
a voice of shame?
The shadow creeps relentlessly
and I,
in tangled weathers,
engulf the dark that snares me.
Copyright © 1992 Marian Buchanan
When I attended l’École supérieure des beaux-arts de Tour, in France in 1972, one of the assignments was to create an abstract self-portrait. I never got around to painting the final version, but this is the coloured-pencil sketch I did for it.