the birds have left too

Photo Essay by Zahra Amiruddin

Sunlight whirls and settles into crevices unknown.
Flitting, floating, bending shape, and taking form – until it’s comfortable.

If you’re lucky enough,
you see it melting within the shadows,
forming patterns that bring out the forgotten edges of your room.

It’s been close to 152 days,
since cracking paint and crinkly bed sheets have been constant muses,
since the ancient walls of home have been windows into a world that was always around,
but never noticed.

What do your eyes see,
when the sky outside is distant? 
Where do thoughts go,
when there are no visits to the Sea?

They seep into the walls.
Into the bottom of tea cups, and the edges of lilies.
Into spinning curtains, and potted plants.
Into my camera,
shifting between quiet reminders, and curious remembrances.

Slowly building into that which makes a home.



Tags

Related Pieces

editor's note

Volume 09

clay | chlorophyll | crimson

Grass is green where you water it. LC’s words float along over Misch’s guitar. It’s a phrase that feels so obvious, and I’m sure those who tend to gardens know this more than most, but it seems to land more than before. The impact noticeable, memorable, echoing through my being. Perhaps we’re ingrained to think it’s greener elsewhere. This patch is the problem and not whether we’re watering it. The key is in the watering. How we go about this practice is what defines our patch of grass. No matter where we go, our patch is, perhaps, the same. Some attributes and characteristics have been changed but the essence is the same: Us.

Stepping into Volume 09 of imprint, marks our third year. I am learning that this patch of green that we have been tending to for the last several years will mould, shift, and sculpt. This depends on how we water it and allow it to take its own shape. It has already happened in wonderfully unexpected ways. There is only so much structure or shape we can predetermine. Beyond that, it will absorb what it needs and reject all that is unnecessary. And perhaps, in this practice, we are changed. Our grass is watered as we water that of our writing, our image making, our practice, our magazine.

From light to dark, rigid to supple, new to old, there is so much in between that is bright and vibrant and unexpected. The practice of our magazine has focused on being open to what we receive; being open to deeply listening to what is shared; being open to work taking us to new journeys. This volume, and this year, will be no different. We will continue tending to it as we have done, learning along the way, from past seasons and present ones.

And yet, I know it will be entirely different.
But still.
It will be watered.