Caress

It is grey, and it stands against a background of grey. It is made of a cool kind of stone, and turned slightly towards me. From where is it lit? I am not sure; its surface glows as though the light source was above and to the right. Is it real light? The light of a northern sky, like that at the end of The New World? A bluey-white? I am not sure. Certainly the stone seems to belong to the north, as I do. It seems to swell towards me, particularly where there is traced the image of a hand. A hand: splayed and open. A favourite image. As if to say: I have no grip, I can find no purchase. Or: my hand is for nothing; it is just a hand.

The sculpture (the image above) is called Caress. What kind of hand caresses that holds nothing, that reaches for nothing? Perhaps not to reach is also to caress. The hand rests in the air. It holds – nothing. It caresses – nothing. And now the shape of the stone, its form. Rounded and then upwards to two rectangular dips and then a curved ridge. Mysterious object! I do not know why I am drawn to you. From where did you arrive – from what dream? Is it that you are a dream that has not yet reached me? Or the image of dreams to come – all of them, as they will reach me from a future as enigmatic as your presence?

Sculpture, prophet, watch over what is written here. I fancy that your double is buried in my head, that my dreams come from cold stone. Or is it that you are somehow my gravestone, placekeeper of my dead body, from which a spirit that writes has been disturbed?