I am back from my island retreat where the arc of waves intersected with my sense of pattern.
.
A home where I no longer study the horizon of ocean and sky.
I am back to the arc of hill and cloud.
Working to translate the magic that I gain from salt water to the grace I love in clay via the margins of my sketchbook.
"Surely someday we will come upon an island
Detach ourselves from the strangeness of this vessel
And learn the steadiness of land the way
We've come to know the brief, authoritative arc of waves.
We will discover what it means to be sturdy
What it means to recognize the same low horizon
Morning, after morning,
The pattern in the erratic origins of leaves.
There is this and only this.
One day there will be no more water to cross,
We will have reached a point of grace,
Of flickering silver.
Tragedy will have no more boldness in this place."
Molly Brown, section III of "Terra Incognita" Kenyon Review (vol. 30, no. 4, Fall 2008)