There were secrets. I will never tell,
you said. Let us bury them here, where
the nameless leaves, the anonymous flora
claim your attention, Thou-ing your I.
We were once . . . young, full of desire,
full of the world’s beauty and promise,
refusing to admit time’s boundaries,
bursting to be ourselves, not knowing
who we were or how we might be other.
Impossible to find a future when pulled by
the past, a retrospect of all we longed for.
from Discourse: Word and Image by David Cottingham and Ruth Susen Riley. Eight of these works are presented by Episcopal Church & Visual Arts.
On View: Whisperings, by Ruth Susen Riley