the confident precision of lament
December 6, 2011 § 4 Comments
Francesca Woodman, Untitled
Standing before death she would see
she who saw life,
sitting aside the pistil,
a moment captured,
executed
with the confident precision of lament
allowed the young who have,
in not having seen at all, seen enough,
exhausted sight,
weary before it is time to sleep.
Chipped like a pallid wall,
the leaden frigidity of a life
erect and exposed –
silence fragile and cut to size,
a moment anonymous
named –
by the stain of shadows cast
and voyeur visions unseen.
I was living in her hometown when she committed suicide. The echo felt… tonight.
This poem gives her back her words.
Perhaps she can feel them, through the wall?
Failed link.
Tells us something about the thickness of the walls?
Right. None may enter that world.
How did one not know?
Tom,
I was very deeply affected by the exhibition of her work at the SF Moma. There was, I kept saying to all who might pretend interest, a starkness to the give and the take she gave form, between fragility & confidence. If my plan & schedule goes to form, I will continue dialoguing with her throughout the week.