Reteach a Thing Its Loveliness (2009)

by Eva Lee

About the internal beauty of all living forms. Abstract biomorphic shapes transform one into the other, recalling cells, bones, organelles, and scientific imaging.

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Artist Statement

About the internal beauty of all living forms. Abstract biomorphic shapes transform one into the other, recalling cells, bones, organelles, and scientific imaging. Inspired by a poem by Galway Kinnell, “St. Francis and the Sow.” The bud/stands for all things,/even those things that don't flower,/for everything flowers, from within, of self-blessing;/though sometimes it is necessary/to reteach a thing its loveliness,/to put a hand on its brow/of the flower/and retell it in words and in touch/it is lovely/until it flowers again from within, of self-blessing;/as St. Francis/put his hand on the creased forehead/of the sow, and told her in words and in touch/blessings of earth on the sow, and the sow/began remembering all down her thick length,/from the earthen snout all the way/through the fodder and slops to the spiritual curl of/the tail,/from the hard spininess spiked out from the spine/down through the great broken heart/to the blue milken dreaminess spurting and shuddering/from the fourteen teats into the fourteen mouths sucking/and blowing beneath them:/the long, perfect loveliness of sow.

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