Apparently even with mutant strains of the virus popping up all over the place, the COVID-19 pandemic is no match for Valentine’s Day romance. This observation is not intended by any means to make light of the millions of families who have lost loved ones to the pandemic. It is just one way of acknowledging how in the face of the pandemic, we still insist on affirming our humanity by recognizing our capacity for expressing and celebrating Love.
I tried to capture some of that capacity with the abstract Silk-Featherbrush mixed media painting, “Valentine’s Day Love in the Era of COVID-19.” What you see above is a detail from the artwork but you can view it in full by clicking here. In the image, spring-like garden hues of green, yellow, red, light blue, and olive surround a darker pool of indigo, purple, maroon, black, violet, and dark brown. The garden indicates both the beauty of romance and comfort of hope while the pool is one of remembrance.
When a friend read my first book, I Made My Boy Of Poetry, which is a collection of short fiction and poetry, he said he was surprised to discover a lot of the poems seemed romantic in nature. I was surprise that he thought so. When it came to the next book, Visions of a Skylark Dressed in Black, certain changes compatible with Valentine’s Day celebrations had taken place in my life, so some of the poems in it, like the one quoted above, showed that. This is another except from VISIONS:
“Around this world and above it
from Jupiter to Andromeda to the garden in your eyes
you sail love’s blossoms all over this universe
each one delivers the infant of a new star
rising as you shine, shining as you rise
Spiral Flower trembling a cool hot breeze
against the dawn of her ascension…”
--from the poem Spiral Flower Ascending (published in Visions of a Skylark Dressed in Black)
Aberjhani
https://www.author-poet-aberjhani.info/
Creator of Silk-Featherbrush Artstyle
Co-Author Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance
Author of Greeting Flannery O’Connor at the Back Door of My Mind
