Statement ( inspired by La Poesia of Pablo Neruda)

This child was guided on her journey
by a constellation of benevolent and terrifying beings.

At seven, I scribbled monsters on my bedroom wall.
By night, the moon
found my jagged pencil lines:
a horrid face, a leering grin
shimmering in moonlight.
My monster drawings sprang to life
and scared me mightily,
as if I hadn’t been the author
of this mischief.

Little green men,
phosphorescent like the numbers
on an old watch,
cavorted
in my backyard.

One became my friend. We met at my window,
had whispered conversations
until, suddenly terrified, I ran to my parent’s bed.

My parents did not welcome my night visits,
told me to be brave.

Told me I was imagining things.
There was nothing there.

An old woman with a face like a walnut shell,
She, too, came to me in the darkness.
I named her Hillilah.
She moved slowly across a meadow.
Almost floating.

As she drew closer
I played dead. I did not know
she had come with robes flapping
like the wings of a blackbird
to enfold and protect me.

Years later, this truth was revealed.
Her name means
God in the dark.

At eight, in the aftermath of World War 2,
I drew pictures
while the teacher taught
God knows what. I drew hundreds of pictures
telling stories in my head.
Some were erotic—I thought you had intercourse

back to back,
buttocks to buttocks.

I drew these things.

As a child artist
I made a fortress against the night,
postponed night,
with graphite and colored wax.

My people, the ones you see here,
arrived unbidden
I don’t know from where.
They formed under my hands.
They asked for eyes and hair and teeth.

I laid them in beds,
wrapped them in sheets–
like the mummified rulers of ancient Egypt.
Draped them like Renaissance deities
and the heroes of
Classical Greece.
I made couples, a baby, the goddess Flora.
I took them as they came.
I thought about my little long life,
whom I have known, what I have learned.

Mixed mediums.

Shaped
by the child who still
holds back the night with pictures
that evoke a drama
unfolding in the bedroom.

Night is intimate,
Night is full of secrets.
Bed is sacrosanct.
Bed is a place for betrayals and for the sealing of covenants.
Bed is the holiest altar, the most profane rack.
Bed is a stage set for a play improvised by fools.

Yes, there is that gargoyle:
he abandoned his post
atop a building in Paris
and took up residence in a nearby flat.
He steals oranges, he gazes about.
He rests after centuries.

This child plays with mud and cloth and
pigments.
Flips the bed vertical
to make a painting.

Mixes mediums and categories.
And catechisms.

Builds a fortress, a walled garden
to welcome the night and
to protect and enfold
a fragile world of beings
ridiculously unreal and
curiously alive. Shimmering
like graphite drawings on a child’s
wall, caught in moonlight.

Now I lay me down to sleep.

Fran Bull
Brandon, Vermont