Genealogies

Forget alone and

forget you have forgotten — 

have it both ways. 

— Sengai

Objects becoming subjects

Lineage and longing

Arriving as if nothing...

Heritage and other disappearances

Desiring darkling days

Believing ancestral oracles

 "I wanted not a window on the world but the world itself.

I wanted everything in the picture."

"There is no world, there are only islands."

"Let the pretty beast and all the world know peace,"

NOTES

- Epigraph: Sengai (Japanese poet and artist, 1750-1837), Trans. Cid Corman

- "I wanted not a ...." Joan Didion from her 1976 essay Telling Stories in Let me Tell You What I Mean (2021). More: "I was not going to Honolulu because I wanted to see life reduced to a short story. I was going to Honolulu because I wanted to see life expanded to a novel, and I still do. I wanted not a window on the world but the world itself. I wanted everything in the picture."

- "There is no..." Jacques Derrida from The Beast and the Sovereign (Lectures Vol 2, 2002-2003)

- "Let the pretty..." Joy Harjo, a line from her poem The Last World of Fire and Trash  in Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings (2015)

- Two poems below by Cid Corman from The Next One Thousand Years, Selected Poems (2008)

- Found Objects-Subjects photos and all other captions conjured in Eugene Oregon by Douglas Beauchamp (2022)

And now the

words — remote:

another

life, not this

obvious

makeshift. I…?

Don't tell me

who I am,
let me guess.

Existing

Is neither

a right nor

privilege

nor any

thing but a

miracle.

RED FLAG

Be who God meant you to be and you will set the world on fire. —Saint Catherine of Siena

You can be a healing presence today in someone's life. —Venerable Mary Potter LCM

We are consciously choosing to shape the future, rather than allowing the future to shape us. —Sr. Sheila Lemieux CSJP

We all work, but it is the spirit in which we work for which we will be rewarded. —Venerable Mary Potter LCM

Prayer is communing with God with my whole being. —Sr. Andrea Nenzel CSJP

We are beginning a new order. We want brave, noble, large-minded, courageous souls. —Mother Frances Clare CSJP

On the path of life, you have been chosen to make the difference!  —Sr. Aileen Trainor CSJP

Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love. —Saint Teresa of Calcutta

Let us never forget that ........ exists to serve the community. —Sr. Monica Heeran CSJP

It is most important to inspire the young with a great love of peace. —Mother Frances Clare CSJP

Where are we headed today?

I’ll walk from here, I say. Thanks for the ride.

How will you get back? Megan asks.

Back to where?

Galway. Your life. Isn't that where it is?

I don't know the answer to that. I had thought my life was just here, with me.

— Charlotte McConaghy, in Migrations (A Novel, 2020)

NOTES
— Slap Tags courtesy LiFE and others, Unofficial Art in Public Placements. Eugene, Oregon, April-August 2022. Copyrights accrue to the artists, noting street artwork is ever fleeting, ephemeral, melting to extinction.  Red Flag Warning.

Photos by Douglas Beauchamp, assuming creative intervention to interpret and present. 

— Captions courtesy the “We are the Legacy” walkway on the grounds of Riverbend Medical Center, Springfield, Oregon. (BELOW, an example)

— Personal Note. This writer had the good fortune during a singular season to room in Siena (Tuscany) Italy in the convent (Santuario S.Caterina Alma Domus) associated with former family home of the woman who would become the prescient Saint Catherine of Siena: …and you will set the world on fire.

CODA

A Red Flag Warning means that critical fire weather conditions are either occurring now....or will shortly.

RED FLAG:  When used metaphorically, the phrase can be used to denote a critical turning point when a situation becomes urgent.

LIFE:  When used metaphorically, the phrase can be used to denote a critical turning point when a situation becomes (.......)