The painting inspired by a poem or vice versa

A Catharsis

Melanie Figg

In motion always, eternity is indistinguishable from creation,

and there the link between ecstasy and ethics shines—

O that boy—unmoored & called to make bells

unthinking & readying

breaking open the earth (—to end so much anxious waiting / to extend his reach)

collapsing into that cool silver, murmuring—

I am here

exhausted in relief & surprised

how lonely that cry is—

that slow unraveling, that dying into newness & leaving the husk

to bear the worthiness of arrival—to reflect what in front of you is sacred

& the birds, hectic & caught up rushing—spinning across air & into our vision of sky

NOTE: in homage to Andrei Tarkovski / epigraph from Donald Revell]