What You Cannot Hold, oil on canvas, 24 x 30 in
Today’s wind (and an amusement like ride on the Whatcom Chief to Lummi Island as the first car on the ferry) reminded me of the day I worked on this painting. I was in a temporary studio on the second floor and the wind was whirling around me outside the windows. I imagined the way the water would spray at sea and thought, of course, of Turner. This painting is home with me, waiting for an exhibit.
You who let yourselves feel: enter the breathing that is more than your own. Let it brush your cheeks as it divides and rejoins behind you.
Blessed ones, whole ones, you where the heart begins: You are the bow that shoots the arrows and you are the target.
Fear not the pain. Let its weight fall back into the earth; for heavy are the mountains, heavy the seas.
The trees you planted in childhood have grown too heavy. You cannot bring them along. Give yourselves to the air, to what you cannot hold. Rainer Maria Rilke, Sonnets to Orpheus