CONFINED

·  With Heavy Heart As Stone I Sleep  ·

Confined: limited: in movement; with others; in practical or emotional opportunity.

I care for my 98 year old aunt who, together with her twin sister, brought me up as a child. She has many complex needs that have gradually increased so that she now requires a great deal of support during the day and night. For the last five years my time away from home has been restricted to at most three hours on any given day. I have however been fortunate in that I have been able to continue my creative work whenever time permits during this period.

Others are also confined as a result of their willing choices, some because of the consequences of harmful choices, the consequences of their poverty, or their physical, spiritual, emotional, or psychological place of being.

As creatures whose natural state is to roam freely, humans are profoundly affected by confinement. This poem and artwork draws on my feelings of being confined, and helps me be more thoughtful about those countless others, human and otherwise, whose liberty is curtailed in some way.

. . .

When I was seven years old my father, as a visitor, brought a canary into my home. Like most everything, because of his failings and sadness, he was unable to care for it, and so I fed the bird, gave it fresh water, and cleaned its cage that sat beside the piano where I practised each day. My favourite moments were when the bird and I shared our music together, despite his being unable to fly freely as his nature longed for. Bird lived a very long life until I was well into adulthood. For his last years I set him free from his cage to fly about my living room before he would return to his home... Perhaps the bird was also an expression of my father's wish to share. An acknowledgement of how my father's world was confined by the seperation and brutality of the boarding school he attended, and the failure of those close to him to recognize his nature and love. For many years my father lived in a caravan with birds that flew freely inside...

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I Am No Longer In This Place

When gentle

I hold my breath

I stay as still as stone

Soft as down that fluffs and folds deep within my palm

I feel the faintest beat of you

As tiny grains of sand rain faint upon my hand

Warm as love

With life

Our eyes meet

One species to another

And for this moment our struggle to escape

Evaporates

I am no longer in this place

Caged

Captive

Confined

I am with you

Realigned

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A full size extract from the visual element of this artwork follows.