February 08, 2005
The Ghosts Didn't Go Anywhere
Ghosts on the trees,
There's ghosts on the wires--
Asking questions and showing signs;
Shivering with truth, they're lighting fires,
Lighting fires all down the line. --John Hiatt, 2000.
by Jerome du Bois
Nobody wanna talk about the ghosts, okay.
Don't matter, they gonna they haunt you anyway.
The unmanipulated, point-and-click digital photograph above was taken by Catherine King in the front yard of our house in Phoenix, Arizona, at around 8:25 PM on Christmas Day, December 25, 2004, as we went out for our evening walk. (Tell me about the camera glitches, George. The insect-eye reflections. The CMOS-cell failures. Riiight.)
In Banda Aceh, Indonesia, it was 8:25 AM, December 26, 2004. And the Earth shifted, and Hell rose as swelling walls of water, and the Angel of Death began to reap 280,000 human lives, turning flesh and body into soul.
While the Earth kept turning over the astounded dead.
Today, I was listening to John Hiatt's album Crossing Muddy Waters (tell us about it!). I listened to the last song over and over, and wept bitter tears at how people can be so thick. We really wanted to show, through our complex installation of ghost photo art called "American Gothic" at Bentley Projects, fragile immortality.
The ghosts haven't gone anywhere.
"Before I Go" is the album's last song:
I've been sleeping for some hours;
Just woke up and you were there:
Like the morning, like the flower,
Sunlight whispering in my ears.
Red tail hawk shooting down the canyon--
Put me on that wind he rides,
I will be your true companion,
When we reach the other side.
I will try, I will stumble--
But I will fly, he told me so.
Proud and high or low and humble,
Many miles before I go--
Many miles before I go.
Can't decide which way to travel,
On the ground or in the sky.
All my schemes have come unraveled,
All that's left is you and I.
And I will try, but I will stumble--
And I will fly, he told me so.
Proud and high or low and humble,
Many miles before I go--
Many miles before I go.
Ghosts on the trees,
There's ghosts on the wires--
Asking questions and showing signs;
Shivering with truth, they're lighting fires,
Lighting fires all down the line.
And I will try, and I will stumble--
But I will fly, he told me so.
Proud and high or low and humble,
Many miles before I go--
Many miles before I go.
Here I go!
Here I am. Here they are.
I don't argue about it anymore.
When the truth makes you shiver, you light the fire, you light the fire all down the line, and all you can do is you lay it out for the hearts and eyes of others.
I'm a pretty hardheaded Darwinian, but I've been dealing with these kinds of things --ghosts, orbs, the dead tugging my sleeve --I'm here! I'm here!-- off and on, for over twenty years. I don't know what to do with them except point to them and respect their persistence. What, if anything, will you do with them, dear reader?
After all, they're only the dead. How can they affect you?
Posted by Jerome at February 8, 2005 07:47 AM | TrackBack