Bullets and BandaidsBullets and Bandaids
Nancy Hilliard Joyce
12″ x 36″ • Oil, Acrylic & graphite on Canvas
Artist Statement
The poem, “No Snow Over There” brought images of snow and the similarities of dandelion seeds. The canvas is vertical with a division at the bottom 1/3 of the framed piece. The top 2/3 is representative of Buffalo New York (as mentioned in the poem) in its cold winters with the colors of frost and the life of the dandelion. The bottom 1/3 of the canvas is the end cycle of the dandelion with the heads turned down and is warmer in color but colder in reality. The flow of the painting as seen within the pattern of the dandelion is also metaphorical of the Trail of Tears and the forced displacements of the heart but, as seen with the 3 seedlings … hope remains.
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by Bruce Turek
snow in buffalo
six feet deep
seems a long, long way away
and don’t matter much, do it.
watching august heat shimmering waves
from chemical barrels
gives you shivers.
snow in buffalo
don’t matter at all.
trembling and drenched while cold wet saw grass
cuts at your cheek
crossing the creek
don’t change much
if the snow in buffalo is
six feet deep.
you are cold over there
at a hundred-three degrees
without snow at all.
even at six foot deep in buffalo.
the coldest it can get
over there in the bush,
ten thousand miles away from snow in buffalo
oozes out of lifeless eyes
while you cradle him tight in your lap.
nothing in the world is icier
than the cooling body of one of your own.
grinched tears dropple his face
even if snow in buffalo
is six foot deep.
then it matters.