OTHER POSTS IN THE SERIES
I live in an Appalachian hollow in the Juniata watershed of central Pennsylvania, and spend a great deal of time walking in the woods. Here’s a bio. All of my writing here is available for reuse and creative remix under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. For attribution in printed material, my name (Dave Bonta) will suffice, but for web use, please link back to the original. Contact me for permission to waive the “share alike” provision (e.g. for use in a conventionally copyrighted work).
The image is astonishing too, the archipelago spots and the eye looking back through the ring finger.
Yes, as Hugh said. It could even stand alone under that title and speak millions. I think I’ve seen that hand here before, Dave. it also reminds me of some of my own work too!
I would say the visual is more arresting than the text. The frost with the hand print in it–just how that print was made speaks to the theme, a human heat melting through the cold. To me it is like a defiant vestige of humanity trying to break through the cruelty of torture. Interesting that the print allows us to see through the frost, but the barrier and imprisonment nonetheless remain.
Thanks. I have posted the image sans text twice before, once at the photoblog (where it’s my all-time most-viewed photo) and once here, in a post called “Self-Portrait in Proverbs.” I’m not sure it was the best image for the poem here, but I was too tired yesterday to look for something more appropriate.
Oh, I think it suits. “Through a glass darkly.”