Monday 15 August 2011

flight of the firstborn


snail shell, embryo or?



'leaving the womb' - pastels, paint and collage

Started life as a scribble but morphed into this. I used very scrappy paper that already had marks on it and I sort of started very casually scribbling at my computer desk (only surface available at the time) with pastels. I then added some paint and finally some torn paper. I notice red is still the dominant colour. This was good fun to do. I particularly enjoyed the textures I created. I see a snail/embryo. I'm glad its ambiguous and can be seen in different ways. It was hard to decide which way up it should go.

I like the outer circle being open whilst still containing. This makes me think of...launching.

I have been thinking a bit about 'launching' this week. Partly due to work, as my tute class was reading '5 messages every adolescent needs to hear', and partly due to an English assignment my younger son is writing, about poems which explore different life stages. This is one of the poems he chose, which resonated strongly with us both. (His older brother went overseas to South America aged just 18.)

Flight of the Firstborn

He streaks past his sixteenth year
small island life stretched tight
across his shoulders
his strides rehearsing city blocks
college brochures
airline schedules
stream excitedly through his
newly competent hands
his goodbyes like blurred neon
on a morning suddenly gone wet

I’m left stranded
on a tiny patch of time
still reaching
to wipe the cereal from his smile
by Peggy Carr


how true
more later

1 comment:

Amanda said...

Even as a non-parent, I *love* this poem!

I'm going to look up the author and check out her other work.