Window Birds

photopoempost turns two

// Window Birds //

I have hidden inside winter,

where the water has become

stone, where my pockets fill

with all that can drown me.

Like dawn where I float along

the moon’s blue skin, my wind-

shield stuttered blind in patterns

of ice like the smallest birds. Here

I am that pockmarked face of cold

rock, where all I have is a mouth full

of dark, where all I have is fleeting.

I can only ever see one bright thing

coming--today it reaches over the hill

shaped as a window full of sun.

//

Photo poem post is officially a toddler. Two year’s ago I began this Substack with this photo and poem. Three years ago I sent this photo to my friend, Meghan, and she responded with the poem, Window Birds. It felt like a door I hadn’t even seen was blown open, inviting me to a place where I didn’t have to make everything alone. What a gift, collaboration.

Here’s where I am today (which is now a week ago upon publishing, or possibly a year ago depending on when you’re reading). Coming out of sickness. Grateful to be able to breath through my nose. Trying not be swallowed by the anxiety monster because my partner just got laid off, and there gos our entire family’s health insurance. Frustrated that I didn’t prep more paper for cyanotypes, because there is not a cloud in the sky today. Grateful for the sun. Grateful for every single person reading this sentence, because what a gift to be heard. to be seen. Thinking about the life-death-life cycle and how late winter is always challenging for me because it feels right in the depths of the death part, and it can be hard to trust in life from that space.

But the birds are singing the morning alive.

I can hear them even through my closed windows. I will pull down my guitar, and even with my raspy sick voice, I will join them. I am remembering the art of singing and how damn good it feels.

Something else that feels good has been sharing more personal images in this space. So, here are more from this winter that I have yet to share here.

And here are a couple of cyanotypes that I made after all (thanks to my dear friend, Sarah, and her UV light)!

Printing cyanotypes feels like coming home. Photography began for me as a fully hands on process. No zeros and ones, just chemistry and paper. Quiet spaces. the sound of water trickling and images being born. It’s been a challenge attempting it in winter, but when the summer sun returns, I’d like to delve deeper into this blue space.

Wishing you the satisfaction of making with your own hands.

for more of Meghan’s award winning poetry - Meghan Sterling

for more of my photography - Eliza Bell Photography