Millenial Lament

Ophelia came to me as a sketch in 2021. She’d spent a year wallowing in a room and decided to look at me. To Shakespeare, she sang herself to a watery grave, and in my opinion Waterhouse painted her in the act perfectly. However, She needed modern resuscitation.

Yes, I did.

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The Watercolor painting, “Ophelia’s Baptism.” As the title infers, I think she’ll rise again.

(Dear Tate Britain- I think she’d look great next to Waterhouse someday.)

I picked a number between you and me

It was too many and I thought I should leave

I painted a picture of all that I grieved

I sent it to Jesus and thought he’d be pleased

The mail rerouted and came back to me

I avoided the box like a plague or disease

Left in the corner, it rotted like cheese

I kicked it outside, it laid under trees

For years I avoided my burden with ease

And there brambles grew, it was barely a tease

But children would run and chase the summer breeze

And question the stench of death with unease

I knew it was time that I look through the leaves

To find that old box, now frozen with grief

Unfolding the sides, I regretfully wheezed

I had painted my love, so stale I heaved

To come back to me, what would this achieve?

My pain was locked up, now tears on my sleeve

The longer I looked, through water, I weaved

Though tattered and old, I chose to believe

One day in due time, my work would conceive

A new kind of longing, the kind God can see

(Poem and Images above are original works.)

Nothing is more relatable to me than the Hannah Hillam cartoon above, and I think it’s obvious why.