Secrecy

Secrecy 

Secrecy flows through you,

a different kind of blood.

It's as if you've eaten it

like a bad candy,

taken it into your mouth,

let it melt sweetly on your tongue,

then allowed it to slide down your throat

like the reverse of uttering,

a word dissolved

into its glottals and sibilants,

a slow intake of breath --

And now it's in you, secrecy.

Ancient and vicious, luscious

as dark velvet.

It blooms in you,

a poppy made of ink.

You can think of nothing else.

Once you have it, you want more.

What power it give's you!

Power of knowing without being known,

power of the stone door,

power of the iron veil,

power of the crushed fingers,

power of the drowned bones

crying out from the bottom of the well.

                                   ~ a poem by Margaret Atwood

Perhaps it is about time I finally posted these illustrations here. If it hadn't been for Robyn's email that I send them to her, they would never have seen the light of day. 

I did these illustrations many many years ago after being stunned by reading Margaret Atwood's poem Secrecy. I felt the illustrations needed an abstract approach and I did that. But as sometimes happens, I was unsure about their effectiveness in partnering Atwood's intense and powerful poem so I kept them away. Until that is, I left a comment on Robyn's inspiring blog ArtPropelled for her fabulous post on Book of Secrets that I had happened to make these drawings. Now these illustrations are up there on her blog too, along with those other stunning works of art. 

As Robyn said, 'it was serendipity at work'.