In memoriam, Paul Bouman, 1918–2019
There is a sacred place for quiet remembering
Sorrow here a little while
Kyries, soft like vesper sparrow
sing well into the evening
Listen to the solace of thanks
faithful to be
there in our heads
our understanding
Now resting
awake to the music
Musician, artist, and seminarian CJ Dates is known for layering art over obsolete media (VHS cassette tapes, old maps, comic books, magazines). He explores the tension between a narrative that “devalues or flattens the human form” and a theology that “raises it to the media of the divine.” Focused on individuals as imago Dei, he reflects on that which is framed in time but shaped by what is timeless.
“It is only in light that the colour of a thing is seen. Hence our first task
is to explain what light is.”
—Aristotle, De Anima (On the Soul), translated by J. A. Smith
When my dog entered the house,
a lone, lost firefly came, too,
wings flapping so fast, I thought, at first,
a wasp was wandering in.
After the bug’s red head revealed
its true identity, I looked around
but found it nowhere. I wondered whether,
like King Hamlet’s ghost,
it bid adieu, paling
The series was clear-sighted about power and misogyny, but it failed to see that vision through.