A Step at a Time

A STEP AT A TIME

W. S. Merwin, 1927-2019, American

from The Moon Before Morning, 2014

 

 

 

Cupid with the Wheel of Time, oil on canvas, 1520. 

Titian, 1490-1576, Venetian.  National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC

 

 

Now one eye daylight
and one not
there was a lifetime
before they flew
their true colors

 

 

 

Gibraltar, Wilmington, Delaware; steps up the triple level of an estate garden in process of restoration after decades of abandonment

 

 

but I must have known
the moment I was born
the pans of the balance

 

 

 

 Woman Holding a Balance, 1664, oil on canvas. 

Johannes Vermeer, Johannes Vermeer, 1632-1675, Dutch.

National Gallery, Washington DC  

 

 

swinging along with me
always two poles

 

 

 

Reverence, 1915, oil and metallic paint on paperboard. 

Frances Picabia, 1879-1953, French.  Baltimore Art Museum

 

 

 

with the seasons rocking
between them

 

 

 

 

Gibraltar, Wilmington, Delaware; steps up the triple level of an estate garden in process of restoration

 

 

and the familiar the unexplored
the city

 

 

 

DSC00182

         New York! New York! color lithograph, 1950  

Sue Fuller, 1914-2006, American.  Philadelphia

 

 

 

                               the country
abroad almost at home
and home never quite there
just the way it was before

 

 

 

Gibraltar, Wilmington, Delaware; steps up the triple level of an estate garden in process of restoration

 

 

left foot right foot

 

 

 

Torrington, graphite and coloured pencil on vellum. 

Rachel Falzon, MFA graduate at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia in 2022 (no other information given)

 

 

on the same way

my own way

 

 

 

Gibraltar, Wilmington, Delaware.

Pathway into the estate garden in process of restoration 

 

 

of finding and losing
and in my own time
coming to one
love one place
day and night
as they came to me

 

 

Gibraltar, Wilmington, Delaware; steps up the triple level of an estate garden in process of restoration

 

 

but the knowing and the rain

 

 

 

DSC00136-1

 The Reflecting Pool at Winterthur, Delaware, in early summer

 

 

 

the dream and the morning

 

 

 

Fragmentary Bliss, 2021, acrylic and airbrush ink on panel.

  Isaac Tin Lei Win, born 1976.  Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia

 

 

 

the wind the pain

 

 

 

Pain, Pain, Fear, Fear, 2006, acrylic on birchwood.

  Linda Lee Alter, American born 1939.  Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia

 

 

 

the love the burning

 

 

 

Gibraltar, Wilmington, Delaware

From a rectangular garden planted with roses and peonies and milkweed and other plants, steps lead up three levels of mature flora to a mansion on the top of a rocky promontory to which access is barred because the house is falling down after decades of neglect.

 

The railings in front of the abandoned mansion at Gibraltar, Wilmington, Delaware

 

 

it seems you must let them come
so you can let them go
you must let them go
so you let them come.

 

 

 

Cupid with the Wheel of Time, oil on canvas, 1520. 

Titian, 1490-1576, Venetian.  National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC

 

 

 

 

 

 

5 thoughts on “A Step at a Time

  1. Oh, the sunlight boding restoration by human sustained goodwill – that may and will turn the wheel of time back and on the constructive track, correcting destruction!
    And – the continuum of man-made forged iron lace projected on the pathway which your camera added up to the shadow-game of reflected sunlight met by cold standing wall-structures … !

    Where you posit your snap-gathering-shots is a wonderwork fabric which then uses words to impress meanings in the thinking mind.
    Thank you!

    1. Thank you, Ioana, for your generous comment with such evocative words – ‘cold standing wall-structures’ and ‘shadow-game’.

      None of us can imagine the abandonment of a place so beautiful as Gibraltar; and we are so content that the garden is being restored even if the mansion, encouraged now to self-destruct by new owners, will be replaced by something less beautiful than it was!

      Sarah

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