The World as Meditation
    36” w x 53.5” h
    stained glass, roundels, lead
    2002

 
    J’ai passé trop de temps à travailler mon violin, à voyager.
    Mais l’exercise essentiel du compositeur — la méditation — rien
    ne l’a jamais suspendu en moi… Je vis un rêve permanent,
    qui ne s’arrêtte ni nuit ni jour.
            – Georges Enesco
 
 


    Is it Ulysses that approaches from the east,
    The interminable adventurer? The trees are mended.
    That winter is washed away. Someone is moving
 
    On the horizon and lifting himself above it.
    A form of fire approaches the crettones of Penelope,
    Whose mere savage presence awakens the world in which she dwells.
 
    She has composed, so long, a self with which to welcome him,
    Companion to his self for her, which she imagined,
    Two in a deep-founded sheltering, friend and dear friend.
 
    The trees had been mended, as an essential exercise
    In an inhuman meditation, larger than her own.
    No winds like dogs watched over her at night.
 
    She wanted nothing he could not bring her by coming alone.
    She wanted no fetchings. His arms would be her necklace
    And her belt, the final fortune of their desire.
 
    But was it Ulysses? Or was it only the warmth of the sun
    On her pillow? The thought of it kept beating in her like her heart.
    The two kept beating together. It was only day.
 
    It was Ulysses, and it was not. Yet they had met,
    friend and dear friend, and a planet’s encouragement.
    The barbarous strength within her would never fail.
 
    She would talk a little to herself as she combed her hair,
    Repeating his name with its patient syllables,
    Never forgetting him that kept coming constantly so near.
            – Wallace Stevens