"Water Lilies" by Troy's Work Table.
Sidewalk chalk wash, sidewalk chalk, chalk pastels, and charcoal pencil on 12" x 12" concrete board.
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"like children who pierce their flesh // and press wound with wound as if like ancients / we assembled a cairn of stones and a pillar forbidding // each other pass with evil intent." and "squinting towards // that one pink blossom, framed by the purple -spiked bee balm, / that has stayed open all this time to forgive us." —from "Water Lilies" by Philip Terman, as found in Rabbis of the Air
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I have had the privilege of hearing Philip Terman read some of the poems of this collection. What I find compelling about his writing and his reading of his poetry is that it is infused with rite and ritual and holiness.
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For me, "Water Lilies" is a poem of memory, loss, longing. Yet it is also a poem of presence, reconciliation, forgiveness.
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I like that instead of creation being redeemed along with (and through) humanity those in the poem are redeemed along with (and through) creation.
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The images that stand out for me are the lighting of a candle, of a stack of stones, of the tiny frogs in the pond, of a single pink blossom floating on the surface of the pond.
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This poem is prayer.
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