"In Quietness..." [Reflections on Chris Orwig's Book Visual Poetry - Chapter 3:2 ] (Isaiah 30:15)
“In quietness... Shall be your strength”, he said
In Holy Book, which on a plaque I read;
For as we slow and quiet down our mind,
Six senses tune and render life we find.The nuance and the subtlety of life,
Slip in when we slip out a spell from strife
And bustle – detail’s noticed – then transformed –
As poetry and photographs are formed.So when we open selves through senses broad,
We come to feel the nearness of our God,
Who’s made a world accessible to each
Of us – through senses six – within our reach.Take smell – the Carighana hedge for me –
One sniff and I’m transported to a scene
As children in the fairy-path’s delight,
With subtle lime-green filtering of light.With rhubarb-stock we’d dip – enameled cup
Of sugar – sweet and sour – the crunch of tough
Red stocks; our great adventure – summer days –
Helps us to photograph how childhood plays.For we tune in to how that’s done today,
In lives of children ’fore our lens new ways;
We listen, smell, and taste their world as well,
And feel – then intuition helps us tell –Their stories from their world of make-believe;
There’s roundedness in the picture-trace we leave
Of life – which helps their parents come to know,
Their children’s lives – their life begin to slow.navigation