Rise and Thrive: A “Lives in Landscape” Series – Zenith

This multi-part editorial series was based on the “Rise and Thrive: A Lives in Landscape Exhibition” created by Milwaukee artist Brianna Joy Seipel. The project was produced in partnership with LOTUS Legal Clinic and the Untold Stories program. https://mkeind.com/riseandthrive

Darkness crushed and shattered
Drenched in a chasm of devastation
Frayed, wrapped in sorrow
Disintegrated
Alone

My injury, your injury
Jagged barbs, inflamed abrasions
My distress, your distress
Startling incursions, engulfing implosions
Copious snarled, shadowed roots of insinuating doubts
Lightning darts sting
My failures, your failures, parched and raw
Your loss, my loss; our screeching losses, dust
Together

Yesterday’s ended
One strand after the next
Unraveling the gnarled shreds and splinters
Undoing old and starting new paths, breathe
Today and tomorrow, turn
Turn to trust
Trust trust
Free

Adapt, believe, connect, discharge, endure
Facilitate, generate, hope, inquire, justify
Know, liberate, move, nurture, optimize
Progress, question, release, search, transform
Unfold, validate, wholehearted, expand, yield
Zenith

I step outside midday, breathless
The point in the low clouds directly above
Through a pale shadow’s billowing, ethereal veil
Hovers an embracing halo of tender, heavenly light
Whispering deep the closest intimate shelter
You are… everything

Zenith crown above me reaching down
and flooding through me
Through and through
Drawing all scattered strands into one pool
Wherever I go, always
Immerse me

I turn in trust
to You

Brianna Joy Seipel: Artist Response: Painting is often an act of courage. There is a moment in the life of every “work in process” when I’m not sure what to do. And then, oftentimes suddenly, there is a breaking through the indecision – like the light through these clouds. We don’t have “zenith” experiences as artists and writers unless we push through these stages, knowing that there is light in the midst of darkness.