We all live with loss. We experience it personally and socially.
The following 10 poems and stories all relate to ceramic sculptures in the Loss Series. For Loss Ceramic Gallery click here.
Loss
Loss is a bright shard -
It flies at you unexpected
torn from an infinite dark
Darkness that rocks
back
and forth
as far as you can remember...
lined with breathing cliffs
warm - soft
ancient
marooned
red
Loss 1 - Shadow
The death of the family dog, Shadow, on a hot summer’s day pushed the first abstract image into clay and metal.
Other images and experiences of loss then flooded into poetry and form.
I tried to stay true to my feeling of loss as pieces torn away and disconnected.
The death of the family dog, Shadow, on a hot summer’s day pushed the first abstract image into clay and metal.
Other images and experiences of loss then flooded into poetry and form.
I tried to stay true to my feeling of loss as pieces torn away and disconnected.
Haipu
My dog and I walk See cow pie and butterfly Which one is beauty? |
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Loss 2 - Grandma Grandpa - The Farm
I spent many glorious summers on my grandparents farm as a child. My grandpa wore overalls daily
and when I sat on his lap I always heard the comforting sound of his pocket watch ticking.
My grandma was a master gardener and was as beautiful as her flowers.
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Menopause
It was always early summer when I visited the farm. I ate cherries endlessly, spitting their pits into Grandma’s furrowed rich garden soil. The swing creaked under a burgeoning bacchanal of arbored green grapes each bunch graced with tendrils of cherubic curls. My hands were blood red raspberries Never could resist them No matter what grandpa said. Garden paths heady with rose, lilac and mystery scents led through chickens that scattered like mercury on their way to the hay and manure of the barn… thick clouds of white wool billowed away from Grandpa’s sheep shears. I was nine and I was thirsty I grabbed the blue screen door leapt into the kitchen and there she was… my Grandma butt naked Botticelli-beautiful One pubic hair She gasped darted behind the cold, white fridge Ashamed Why was she hiding such beauty? I couldn’t understand it… Now I can squinting at these memories through my blue readers But that glimpse gave me spring And I swoon at the scent of my Freesias that nod, “Botticelli-beautiful” as I pass… © Vicki Gunter, spring, 2004 Dedicated to Addie Smets, my grandma, and Evangel King for the creative watershed. |
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Loss 3 - Mom's Metamorphosis
I read In The Lettuce to my mother as she lay in a hospital bed with a tracheotomy, unable to speak...seemingly unaware. When I finished reading the poem she squeezed my hand. It was the last communication we ever had.
The day after she died my sister and I called each other up and we both said, “I just had the most amazing experience! I was standing in the backyard and a Swallowtail butterfly came and visited me and it felt like it was MOM!”
The day after she died my sister and I called each other up and we both said, “I just had the most amazing experience! I was standing in the backyard and a Swallowtail butterfly came and visited me and it felt like it was MOM!”
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In The Lettuce Life is motion… waves of motion. The rolling, swollen hills -- their ancient heaving history, the macrocosm mother of river rock and beach sand. Black holes, bending space, pulling moons, eggs, wriggling sperm… the rolling, swollen belly. The ocean swells fertile with looping worms, fish, and sensually whipping seaweed. The waves never stop. Always looking for an anchor, a container. Up and down, side to side, in and out. The meandering path of salamanders, sticky frog fingers and snaky meadow creeks broaden into verdant pools, swarming with egg sacs and pollywogs. The lizard’s scales inch against the granite and slither to a stop- waiting, listening, looking- devouring the moment, before a mammal leaps, eating the memory of itself. Waves undulate in the seas, against the stream bed’s mud, eddy off the tongue toward the spiraling cochlea, radio, telephone, television, tell tale telemetry of telepathy, cast by the wind against fresh sailing sheets on the hill, where gravity plays with a child’s rubber ball. The coffee swirls with the cream. The steam curls out of the cup, the molecules waft past her swaying cilia, mixing with the breakfast berries, all riding their peristaltic wave. Her flowing hair turns against the curve of her neck, down her spine, arching and rolling as she reaches for the morning paper. Her brain waves remember, erotic undulations, a rolling country road, the inchworm in the lettuce she washed the night before. And somewhere by the licking flames of a campfire the design of his breath condenses into heat waves with every flicker of his pulse. Life is motion… waves of motion waking, wandering, to the next… ©Vicki Gunter 2002 Poem, choreography and performance commissioned by Professor Norman Austin and University of Arizona |
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Loss 4 - Daddy "Tuolumne or Bust"
Two years after my mom’s death and the wonderful Swallowtail butterfly experience, my father “hit the trail” at 5am — his usual waking time to build a backpacking breakfast fire and watch the sun rise. That same morning a Turkey Vulture skimmed past our windshield at close range. My sister and I whooped, “Whoa, was that dad?” Some people value vultures as birds of peace because they never kill. My father did like to explore and sample a bit of everything. He was also powerfully peaceful. When he died, he was holding a granite rock from Tuolumne Meadows in Yosemite, with the knowledge that his ashes would be scattered there. |
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Loss 5 - Where are My...?
Glasses... Glasses... Presbyopia Where are my... Glasses. A pair in every room but where are my... Two moons Epithelial Basement Membrane Dystrophy Where is my... Vision? © Vicki Gunter - 2012 |
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Loss 6 - Wildlands ...by a thread
Our bodies, the earth and all life on it are primarily composed of water and "clay". Clay has a memory. Our Bodies have a memory. Both are imprinted by the way they are held in the hand. Our earth has a memory and responds to our manipulations Let's remember and learn how to live leaving the smallest fingerprint. © Vicki Gunter - 2012 |
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Loss 7 - Keys!
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KEYS
we got to remove the reason for the keys oppression obsession of possession I went bowling with Michael Moore Canadians, he says, don’ lock their door. spread it aroun’ town unlock the door we don’ need those keys no more oppression obsession of possession the size of the lock speaks the value of the stock remove the reasons for the keys you got so much stuff you got to lock it down? a calamity, insanity the storage space profanity slaves make people rich and most people poor spread it all aroun’ and unlock the door the glaciers are a meltin’ the freeways freezin’ up melt down the keys jam up the locks lonely earth’ll be a laughin’ at yo’ worthless nas/dow stocks oppression obsession of possession so, wink at your sista wink at the sun the synergy of energy just let it run live for life, love and peace unlock the reason for the keys whose house nigga now whitey? you and me? unlock the reason for the keys opporturnikey for you and me unlock the reasons for the keys oppression obsession of possession millions ’n’ millions o’ locksmiths ‘round the world put ‘em out o’ business if we feed the poor old people in the closets, cold on the streets locked in the wards teach ‘em all the logic opporturnikey for you and me remove the reason for the keys oppression obsession of possession possession obsession obsession remove the reasons for the keys © Vicki Gunter September, 2003 |
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Loss 8 - It's Not One Thing...It's Everything
The Headlines on the flag are all actual news headlines. They speak for themselves.
Click to read all of the Loss #8 - Headlines that are lithographed & fired onto the flag.
Loss 9 - Reflection
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© Vicki Gunter 2002-2012