Red Child Emanation, gouache on paper, 16" by 20" by Josie Gray

Emanation of the Red Child by Tess Gallagher

 

This painting and handwritten poem are offered together for $1500.
Please contact us for more information.

 

 

Child that never existed

because to exist

is to need the world

as a place merely to enter

as a leaving. Child

the horse’s legs stepped through

crossing the river; how you kept

the red of you in the river-flow

so as always to be seen, the not-sure

of you gathering and undulating

edgeless and the rider

swinging down from the stirrup

to stand waist high in you

as you dissipated and reformed

like a fish flexing its

river-muscle. Child pulling light

into a shawl of tattered guess-work

under trees, as if you were a spirit-shout

whose echo refused its assignment

of incremental leave-taking and so

gained stature by agreeing to stay

fringed with loss just glancing

off promise as a child is

when its delight exceeds what can be

seen by anyone looking on.

 

So the red child exceeds our thought

of it, envelopes eagerly the shimmering

notion of the horse’s nostrils sifting its

water-garden of breath-lilies where

no birth can empty it and no death

ever drink its fill. Red child

finding a way to be and not be

like a riderless horse

letting the river fall from its flanks

as it gains the bank

and its horse-mind catches the glint

of light in water where a stirrup,

the steely brand of it marks

the red-child-moment

and is empty, so empty

we keep on seeing

what can’t be

seen.

 

Copyright © 2004 Tess Gallagher