My Grandmother Brown died in a house fire on Christmas Eve, 1982. It was her birthday. She was the rose in my life. I guess it is fitting that the final firing of this piece timed out on Christmas Eve fifteen years later. She called them redbirds, those flashy cardinals who lit up her back yard, and she viewed them with a chunky pair of field glasses that must’ve come out of World War I. Each Christmas, Grandmother clipped feather redbird ornaments on her Christmas tree. I remember seeing them as the only bright spot on the lawn when her beloved tree was tossed out the front window after the fire. Or maybe I just imagined it. The back yard in spring and the front yard in winter—each with red specks—compose the two blurry images on the binocular lenses.
It wasn't until after the first firing of the binoculars that I came up with the small mandorla (an almond shape used in medieval times to signify the divine). I looked through a pair of real binoculars with independent eye focus and saw that while focusing, you get a mandorla, especially if your eyes are crossed. Sort of like a Venn diagram, where there’s a subset of commonality. The common thing in the two small paintings was obviously a cardinal. The bad image and the good one, co-existing, together forming reality. This side-by-side acknowledgment of lament and joy, found in so many of the Psalms, is the most helpful aid to grief that I know.
For years now, I’ve delighted in the unpredictability of redbirds, and whenever I see one, I am compelled to stop and replay whatever it is on my mind at that instant, and recognize that God is in it. Redbirds have become a harbinger of grace for me, a personal metaphor. So for Grandmother’s binoculars, I painted a tiny, detailed cardinal on the mandorla piece. When balanced on the focusing bar, it hovers in between the lenses. Just like my Grandmother, it gets right into the middle of the mess, a reminder of the joy that is ultimate.
Redbird Binoculars
Charred
Christmas tree
in snow thrown out
of the smoldering house
where a shadow had formed
around your figure, you and your
little dog. In spring your birdbath was
not frozen over so many birds came but
not as bright as the ones in winter who foraged
for your seed. Hands knobby as field glasses saw
them all but my focus was as blurry as fumes for years
without red roses I relied on redbirds. A small
mandorla holds the commonality of feather
ornaments in your front yard, cardinals
in the back. Now when I suddenly
receive that wild vermilion
reconciliation, I gasp
like you and claim
your name,
Joy.
My Grandmother Brown died in a house fire on Christmas Eve, 1982. It was her birthday. She was the rose in my life. I guess it is fitting that the final firing of this piece timed out on Christmas Eve fifteen years later. She called them redbirds, those flashy cardinals who lit up her back yard, and she viewed them with a chunky pair of field glasses that must’ve come out of World War I. Each Christmas, Grandmother clipped feather redbird ornaments on her Christmas tree. I remember seeing them as the only bright spot on the lawn when her beloved tree was tossed out the front window after the fire. Or maybe I just imagined it. The back yard in spring and the front yard in winter—each with red specks—compose the two blurry images on the binocular lenses.
It wasn't until after the first firing of the binoculars that I came up with the small mandorla (an almond shape used in medieval times to signify the divine). I looked through a pair of real binoculars with independent eye focus and saw that while focusing, you get a mandorla, especially if your eyes are crossed. Sort of like a Venn diagram, where there’s a subset of commonality. The common thing in the two small paintings was obviously a cardinal. The bad image and the good one, co-existing, together forming reality. This side-by-side acknowledgment of lament and joy, found in so many of the Psalms, is the most helpful aid to grief that I know.