Carrying Big Boy

I had a dream about the ‘botched restoration’ of the above Spanish fresco. I found the ‘new’ image created by the older woman, actually strangely touching — an expression of self-aware introspective melancholy yet with some slight mischievousness. My dream was quite straightforward and I translated it into this text.

Theologically I found the image really interesting. It made me think about things like personal revelation unmediated by institution, the representation of one’s personal god, those Danishes with the face of Jesus or mother Teresa on it, translation, speaking in tongues, the Vulgate (writing in the language of the people), folk art, and Duchamp (Mona Lisa), Picasso (repainting Velasquez), and work like Tom Philips’ Humament.

Carrying Big Boy


I had to carry big boy.
We were in the forest.
He could go no further.
What time was it?

Autumn.
His hair was tangled
leaves
deer coloured.

He could go no further.
He was bigger than me.
The sun was lager
slanting through trees.

We walked through beams.
He collapsed.
I had to carry him.
“Hold my shoulders,” I said.

“Can’t,” he said.
I had to lift him.
I carried him.
I could hardly walk.

I had to.
It would be soon be night.
It was autumn.
His mouth was birds.

_____________________________

After the 19th-century Spanish "botched restoration" fresco restored in the village of Borja in northeast Spain