 |
| Catch the Light. Watercolor, ink, gouache, collage, glitter, and glow-in-the-dark paint on Arches paper. © Liz Darling 2020. |
 |
| Catch the Light. (with lights out) Watercolor, ink, gouache, collage, glitter, and glow-in-the-dark paint on Arches paper. © Liz Darling 2020. |
It’s been a revelatory year. Events of 2020 exposed a lot of ugliness within my community... and within myself. I’ve become significantly more misanthropic. Conversely, it's been a year of rest, reflection, family togetherness, and spending time in more mindful ways, including being outside and opting out of a lot of garbage that I might have otherwise given my energy to.
---
Shadows
Everyone knows the great energies running amok cast
terrible shadows, that each of the so-called
senseless acts has its thread looping
back through the world and into a human heart.
And meanwhile
the gold-trimmed thunder
wanders the sky; the river
may be filling the cellars of the sleeping town.
Cyclone, fire, and their merry cousins
bring us to grief—but these are the hours
with the old wooden-god faces;
we lift them to our shoulders like so many
black coffins, we continue walking
into the future. I don’t mean
there are no bodies in the river,
or bones broken by the wind. I mean
everyone who has heard the lethal train-roar
of the tornado swears there was no mention ever
of any person, or reason—I mean
the waters rise without any plot upon
history, or even geography. Whatever
power of the earth rampages, we turn to it
dazed but anonymous eyes; whatever
the name of the catastrophe, it is never
the opposite of love.
- Mary Oliver
