Summer 2018

I thought to myself I should make something to remember summer by so that is what I have done. I used clothes, papers, and other pieces from my home, out of sentimental necessity, to create a likeness. Where objects preserve something of the eyes that look at them, they amass their own lifetimes. Thirty-one summers ago I was born.

Antiquity (The Egg)

The world was born from a crack
in the great egg in the sky:
From the yolk, the sun;
From the shell, the earth;
From the white, the clouds;
Dust became stars;
And from this egg all things hatched

Visions (The Sun)

Hot hell, deep north in the Carolinas
I spend summer away from the city.
Barefoot, bare-chested, sunburnt
I build an egg carrier;
it is a cradle of wood and rope
foraged from the workshop of my grandfather.

**

He won't see his workshop again,
so I use his shirts and tools to make a
scarecrow, his burlap and drop cloths
become my paintings.
I'll remember how to turn seeds into
flowers and plant them somewhere
between the bamboo and red tomatoes.

Kuebiko (The Finger)

This scarecrow looks like me
It wears the same shirt, jeans, and
boots as me
And it knows what I know, but I feel it
knows more
Things without eyes can often see more
In shadows of the sun, guarding eggs,
I reach for it with my finger