Caption: With “Internal Reflection” at the “Images and Imaginings” exhibition
Our artists’ collective recently held a joint exhibition in collaboration with local poets, called Images and Imaginings. Artists and poets were paired by lottery, and each of us created a painting inspired by the poem we were given – by feeling and imagination, rather than illustration.
I was paired with Welcome Home, a poem by Marian Relihan.
Caption: Marian Relihan, poet
At the close of the exhibition, my painting found its way to her – the poet herself acquired the piece, moved by how closely it resonated with what she’d written. It felt like the most fitting ending this collaboration could have had. I’m grateful to Marian, both for the poem and for finding in my painting something that spoke to her.
It was a genuinely inspiring project – thank you to everyone involved.
Welcome Home by Marian Relihan
Let’s gather our hearts and dreams of kin and country.
Let’s go to the field where the old house stood,
remember the ones that left and the ones that stayed behind.
Is there an old rose still blooming there?
Inhale the woman who planted it.
Let’s go to the meadow and roll in the sweet hay,
where they made love on a warm summer evening.
Walk where the bog cotton brushes your ankles
and heathers perfume the air.
Bring tea to toast the lost labours that warmed the hearths in winter.
Let’s go to the shore
and feel the slippery seaweed that made fields to grow potatoes.
Gather sandy shells and pocket them for memory.
Let’s go on the mountain to see what gods saw
and raise our arms to give thanks to Anu and Bridget
for the mighty and the brave that walked before us.
Walked through the desolate blights that darkened the skies,
kept themselves and their kin alive.
Walked through the streets of New York, Boston and London.
Look through a window on Kerry Head
and wake in the heaving slum, a brave new world.
Those that stayed kept the candle in the window
for the homecomings and goings.
The Roses came with their smiling white teeth,
their Masters in ology’s, nourished, and polished.
Let us gather wherever we meet and connect with our kin.
Wherever you have come from, welcome, welcome home.