The Skinny Hand

She is running; a cog in other’s lives. Behind, a beekeeper’s sticky fingers, ahead the snakebite. She runs on. Coolly meets the snake eye to eye. In the dark might be freedom. But there’s no peace in Hades. The husband returns to rescue. She’s tempted; by the sun, the flowers. And love. Follow the music Eurydice. Don’t think yet. He fails, reaches the sunlight alone. She is finally lost. No looking back required.

(Tony Tuckson, No title (Grey) 
c.1973, National Gallery of Australia)

On an island like a rock she weaves visions that torture her sleep and ruin her days. From the cloth come forms hardly human, women with bird wings or dog heads. Or silky arms and legs encircling her missing love. Worse, she weaves his pleasure, his forgetfulness, his fear. By twilight, the cloth is an agony. Wearily she unravels each thread, its story told, to begin again tomorrow. For while she weaves, he lives. 

(Giovanni Anselmo, Entrare nell’ opera [Entering the work], 1971, National Gallery of Australia)

Stranded on her island, the bronzed prince of Troy needs Aphrodite’s help to stir her to love. Mother, have you seen her? One is enchanted. Time stops. Oh! Come on Aeneas. Stop talking about the war. Here’s a cave, get on with it; and now go. Your ships are ready. The historians need you to find Rome. That is my honour, whispers Dido, plunging the blade in. Lament; she doesn’t miss her heart. Lament and remember her.

(Rick Amor, 1978, Woman in the Wind, National Gallery of Australia)

bike seat

wheel chair

fixed gear 

(Marcel Duchamp, Bicycle wheel, 1913 reconstructed 1964) 

What is it about these gods, always chasing beauty? I warn: no surprise here, no bucolic frolic. What runs faster than the west wind?  Chloris was in bud, had no hope. She spewed roses as she fled so stop thinking Spring is just about bees and honey. Okay, he marries her, makes her Queen of the Flowers. Still doesn’t work for me. Blame him for diversity, her for profusion. That by any other name would still smell …

(Hilda Rix Nicholas, 1925, Les fleurs dédaignées, National Gallery of Australia)

Her threads wove their legends so well she challenged all to a contest. Work as fine as mine can’t exist. She was right. Not even Athena who sprang from Zeus’s agonized skull is her equal. But wise not to boast. The Goddess of Peace fights with sense. Baffled Poseidon with an olive tree and bridled his horses. Knows woman’s art. Saves heroes from their adventures. Kind of girl you want on your side Arachne. Arachne?

(Anne Wilson, topologies)

How do we begin? Apollo loved his mother who loved another. A betrayal worth murder? As flames consume her body he thinks to rescue the unborn child. Safe in a cave far from the world of men the boy learns the unknowable. His mother dipped only her feet in the water but he invites us to plunge in. His hand gentle on the serpent’s head reminds each dreamy death sheds our skin. Trust him. He will revive us if we fail.

(late Hellenistic bust of Asclepius) 

Find her in the mountains, wild woman hunter. A single nature. Pure to the point of cruelty. Once she loved other than herself. A hunter: heart-broken and tender. Might this be the deepest love ever? Her male twin cajoled: him to swim to the horizon. And her to aim her bow at a dark fleck now rippling through the sea. Her aim true, Orion’s temple is pierced. Hunter hunted. Love lost. The stars are still mourning.

(George Lambert, 1913, Beatrice, National Gallery of Australia) 

Her father was hateful cruel. His severed bits were tossed upon the sea creating revenge against all men in the loveliest form ever. But can this loveliness love? She fails as wife; weaves but her threads are bare. Instead she tames animals. Plays with life. With men. A weary husband forges a cage but like a sparrow she is forever searching the next crumb. Priestess of love, jealous cow, trouble maker. Or just lost?

(Richard Avedon, 1957, Marilyn Monroe)

Born in a cave, he moves like breath from dark to light. He stole the cows that had the gut that made the lyre that sang his nurse to sleep. A crime? Yes but what fun this kid. Zeus gave winged shoes for speed, a hat against bad weather. The rest he finds himself. The Contract? To go anywhere, bring any news. Scientist, fighter, lover, prophet, guide. Hermes: born to cross the abyss of our twin worlds. Are you ready?

(Hermes, Villa Cimbrone, Ravello)

I know the girl Persephone. She loves flowers; sweet peas, asphodels. See them pressed to her face. See too the arms around her, pulling her back and down and down. Her mother is demented. Threatens to halt the spring. All time. Bees drowse, birds fall from trees. Zeus (father? lover?) intercedes but too late. She has taken the food of death and must go each autumn to where she is now Queen. That begun has no end.

(Bernini, 1621, Pluto and Proserpina)

Zeus is gone, we know why. An epic keeps the Wife distracted. It does the trick. Almost. What’s next? Wife works it out and for revenge Echo’s free speech dies. Cursed to repeat our stupidities, she falls in love with him that just walked by. Not him we warn but Him she cries. A him caught by his own reflection. Such beauty! You I love! (I love I love!) And on it goes as Echo’s fading voice retells the tragic end.

(Julia Margaret Cameron, 1868, Echo)