I Used to Think (the ladder), 2021
wax paper, typewriter ink, king gold, wax
18 x 33 cm
Realised 5/08/21 while listening to New Order’s True Faith as it came on bFM during the midday hour. A poem written on wax paper in response to a book I read when in Wellington in the last week of July (THE POEM IS LIKE A SCULPTURE MADE OF WORDS). Covered in gold and pinned to our flat ladder with a thumbtack that belongs to Haydn and displayed in the studio out the back for an afternoon.
Signed FW, 202 1/2
The work must be experienced in the cool of the day with the breeze and the light and hence cannot be photographed or represented here in its entirety.
Text reads:
I used to think the ladder
was strong enough to climb
each rung a light extinguished
each nail slowly shrinking
but I was so much older then
I have found my cool-drip is not enough
to carry me waking, or sleeping
or no-place in-between
so let me travel downwards
through the fog and hovering mist
to the Place Where it All Began
and as I climb on down the faces become soft
a breath of stranger kindness ____
a whisper of welcome to
The Promised Land