the remains, and the part that lives on

A photograph by a friend of Jamies that really struck me. It captures some of the same feelings I am trying to touch on with the Plywood Tree, One Horse, and Swedish Cog Bones. In this photo, the amputated glory still has a sad but powerful presence, its ghost limbs dwarfing the house that it was amputated for.

In the Plywood Tree I see an attempt at glory that suceeded, but that was then undone by the “hero’s” excessive cycles. In One Horse, the remains and the part that lives on are juxtaposed to touch on the past hopes and whittled dreams of the owners of the craft. And the Cog Bones shows the skeleton as promise, the remains of the boat that was serving as the plans for the boat that will be, but instead made into a facsimile of the skeleton itself.

Regarding the remains, and the part that lives on, I’m reminded of the Yukio Mishima quote (from somewhere in the Sea of Fertility, I believe) that “memories are the bones left on the plate,” or of Tucker’s reference to the 21 grams weight of the soul.