republicofthebees

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exerpt from bloomscattering, a work in progress by sarah rusher

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excerpt from bloomscattering, a work in progress

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exerpt from bloomscattering, a work in progress

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Dorothy Cross (Irish, b. 1956), Darkness & Light, 2017. Luminescent screenprint on Waterford paper. Toledo Museum of Art. 02202019.

“Cross uses synthetic luminescent materials to symbolize impermanence and duality in nature. Displayed side by side, two photographic images of a tree mirror each other, one printed as a positive & the other as a negative, referencing day & night. If they were transposed on top of one another, the two images would cancel each other out. Under light the black painting is most prevalent, but when light is omitted, the luminescent paint glows, altering the viewer’s perception of background/foreground and positive/negative.”

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Rusher, Sarah. "φῶς: (phôs, translation: “light, showing [oneself/itself], speaking”)." Confluence, Fall 2019, pp. 68, URL.

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extract from bloomscattering, a work in progress

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Rosemary Laing (Australian, b. 1959), groundspeed, (Rose Petal) #17, 2001. C Type Photograph. Toledo Museum of Art. 02202019. [Source]

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ADVERBIAL PHRASING

to unfold a moth into a fluttering mouth / where smooth, riverpolished stones / glow wide in the jaw // to watch as slight limbs loosen / yellowing moon rolls in silence // to lean into the paused lips / parted slightly / as a sea of red // to read the space between the flesh that covers the teeth / not the lips / but the space between them / which a mouth inhabits / delimits / and circles / to speak a non-space // to picture someone speaking / then erase the face / the lips in motion / and leave the space between them / widening / shifting / momentarily disappearing / a shadow / a moving shadow on any surface // to see all sensation is a moving surface / a bird’s darkthrown shade wrinkling the grass and the ground beneath / the moment / a shape / the waves of light / lowered into the field / of vision / a between space / undefined // to ask  / what about the tongue? // to not receive an answer

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what is infinite exists as moments

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her name should be a hymn / not sung but shivered

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it’s wednesday and wednesday is relative to the system by which red is the [un]eaten apple sinking into rot by virtue [left] alone —with sin

[right] i am [not] here i am [not] [left]

for dead slipping past the Sun on some day in september when september is relative to the system by which red is the wounded mouth i speak with—

out from with— in form and form is not relative to the system by which red is the irremovable stain of his hands as his hands tore the red from my flesh

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Arcola, IN

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Στησίχορος

birds scatter. if I could ask a question it would be: Stesichorus, are you lonely with only your birds--Stesichorus what happens when your birds leave, when your birds look away when all eyes fall off of you for a millennia or two or Stesichorus,are you hungry with only your birds--Stesichorus how do you sustain when your birds leave, when your birds fly and fade with the distance of the long dead

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In the beginning when the world was young there were a great many thoughts but no such thing as truth. Man made the truths himself and each truth was a composite of a great many vague thoughts. All about in the world were truths and they were all beautiful.

Sherwood Anderson, Winesburg, Ohio. A woman viewing Libra: The Scales, date unknown. From the AMNH archives.

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baby I know the world looks different from here fake fluorescence hits the light of the sun, warring in the sharp bleak divide between what is natural and not [we are both] and each morning you drag your teeth over the dawn (bleached and on its way to being broken) a disruption in the stillness of shattered glass (it’s only water)

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oxygenated blood and her lips the taste of color the color of heat Prometheus did not give this fire to [wo]man this is red this is stolen