TWILIGHT SHEETS

A mind filled by the heart sees a world full of beauty and compassion. Contents . ignorance . intensity . indignity . iniquity Intensity to be of great depth to strain in stretching out to form from extreme feeling TWILIGHT SHEETS Keeping flowers alive a little longer through early and late frosts, my parents would dress plants in worn bedsheets for protection. I worried the weight of the cotton would break the stems. Instead the plants taught me their intelligence in bowing to accommodate the weight of protection. Dappled in twilight dew, the new application of the sheets I had seen for decades gave me pause. As I long had an impulse to hug what I saw, rubs against urges to cut roses as that brings about imminent death, I refrained from the action to embrace. In a limbic pause, the sense of longing to be touched, embraced, be protected, pushed me a few steps back to look. I gazed in the tearful gratitude of the sweetness of such a gesture, I studied the sheetfold's congregations as congruent with my appreciation for lines formed through centuries in rocks. The patterns of the bedding mimicked the very plants covered. The desire to protect what is with another form of that, the draping of the flowers with flowered textiles performs the artists' impulse to express love through performative representation. While sentiments are loathed in the artworld and often suspect in society, I hid these photos from view for awhile. Occasionally reviewing the images to resuscitate their significance, I decided recently to share them on the internet to remind myself to make prints, draw them, or perhaps paint, but why? Such a saccharine clinging to ineffable moments illuminates this place behind my nose, animating a memory of the scent of bed clothes and damp plants. While the experience becomes delivered to the present, the longing to look back or again, just a little longer, lets the love for what is blossoming open up a bit more. In looking, fights and hunger are forgotten. I forget anything other than these sorts of illuminated, parietal pleasures. These spaces within our bodies are invisible to the world and evident in our gestures. I invite longer lingering on these generous actions of care as nurturing to in focus for our collective psyches. If psyche means spirit, or at least the psyche dances with spirit, then perhaps the affect of art has greater weight and stake in the longevity of our being here. Since difficulty is made in attempting to light a protected and damp plant on fire, perhaps putting out the fire in the minds of men would invite the delivery of care people are aching and crying for. © Mari Amman. All Rights Reserved. Poetry, Prose &Suche VOL I. First edition 2023, electronic distribution. Text and Images by Mari Amman. The poems contained within this volume were drafted circa 2006-2009, in Chicago, USA, and edited during spring 2023 in Paris, France, with the enormous support of The Trélex Residency. Images: https://mariamman.net/category/images/ This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit lelapin.substack.com/subscribe