Tempera on Paper
24”H x 19”W
$500 unframed original
Take me past the guarded place in you
where confusion covers itself
in unrelenting confidence
then marches on in lively steps
Take off the façade
let it fall away, into nowhere
Turn around and face me
I search the infinite depth
where beyond all entrenchments
I find your thirst to be met and understood
the sadness in your bones,
the want of your silent cries
to be heard and be known—
abiding within those unseen landscapes
is a world of precious dreams
Let me touch where the battle wounds
lie quietly healing—
Buried beneath an armored sheath
rests a lifetime of love and loneliness,
blame and triumph,
honor and defeat
Within this blended web
of scars and treasures,
glistening with honesty,
there you are—
I found you, beneath the soldier’s plated heart
So loosen the knots around my own
see all its agony bared and mending
and in between each open space
we’ll breathe upon the frailty
All the wishful longings to be had
bring to me yours as I meet you there with mine.
–Susan Frybort