Our Lives Are Brief (East Wind Drawings)
In collaboration with London based poet Tamar Yoseloff. All text © Tamar Yoseloff 2017 all images and soundtrack © Bill Jackson 2017
![]() Our Lives Our Brief (East Wind Drawings) | ![]() Our Lives Our Brief (East Wind Drawings) |
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![]() Our Lives Our Brief (East Wind Drawings) | ![]() Our Lives Our Brief (East Wind Drawings) |
Our Lives Are Brief
(from East Wind Drawings Land)
written by Tamar Yoseloff
I stand inside a pool of streetlight, holding the dark
at bay – this must be what it’s like to have a god.
Sodium casts a sickly yellow on my skin.
In the ancient map there are monsters
hugging the places where the maker
had no clue, where you might fall off the edge
into nowhere. I had a night light as a child,
a plug-in candle in the corner of my room.
But a monster lived behind my eyes,
and even though it died each morning,
it rose up again at bedtime. Back then
my parents would sing me to sleep;
now they’re ash and bone. Our lives are brief
like the banks of candles in cathedrals,
each a flame for someone loved;
or the light I see framed in curtained windows:
for each one who’s lit a lamp, made a strike
against the dark.