I Came This Way Some Time Before

In his later years I saw John as a fresco painter on his way to the monastery. I imagined him sizing up a moist plaster wall. He would brush his colourful images into the surface. As the wall dried, as its plaster set, every pigmented line John put there would join the lime and sand particles, becoming part of the structure rather than a surface decoration. His artistry, I thought, made things more solid.

But nothing was beyond retouching, fresco secco. John responded to public prompts and to private re-readings of Plotinus, Novalis, and Jean Giono – the three masters who taught him most. His love for the world here was transfigured by a vision of the world there. Finally, in his finest pieces, the artist became his own mythological creature:

The sky opens, filled with calling,
filled with form. Across the estuary
the swans rise from the water—
making myths. Across the forest
you can feel a summer breeze
feathering your skin, and turn to see
what it is that’s come over you.
[‘Making Myths’]

I Came This Way Some Time Before is available from Sudden Valley Press.