Lisa Szabo-Jones: A Gaze I Return

A gaze I return “so real that even the bones in my back feel it” holds a heft that rarely marks streets, classrooms, boardrooms. Some looks crouch, grip and lock ankles, knees, topple body. As the ground rises, hits, spreads shoulder blades, I refuse to “close my eyes” because of  “the reality of the hard earth I am lying on”. Yes, Caeiro . . . “All opinions ever formed about Nature / Never made a flower bloom or a blade of grass grow.” Nor tempted them to linger, to say hello. 

The cited excerpts come from an untitled poem in Alberto Caeiro’s uncollected poems 1914-1922. The image is from my ongoing urban wilds series, which ranges across Canadian, European, and American cities. The image merges digital and 19th century photographic processes, and watercolour pigments.