Helios

“Helios” Series Artist Statement

To you, Helios, our King; herald of the good times, when cows fatten in lush grass, when youths and maidens dance to celebrate new light, to you we owe our joy.

Do not, we beg, disappear eclipsed as darkness descends.
Do not, we ask, be sparing of your rays before our crops are done.
Grant us warmth, grant us light, each according to its time and we will crown you our King.

O cruel one, our Spring has hardened into drought. Children cry for thirst. We know not to trust your spinning rays of fire any more this season.
O Cruel one, O Evil, How could you hurl upon us such damage, such destruction!

Our fields are sere, earth cracks open, dry rivers howl in pain. Did we ever think you could inflict such death?

My suns, thus, will be beautiful, or angry; straight rays for light, oscillating for heat, as the heraldic code prescribes.

They will be crowned in opals and pearls. Some I shall let lie bare and dry… others blaze in diamonds, a Sun King’s ransom.

We shall, I think, give equal time to celebrate the good: solar panels and beloved sunsets, but then acknowledge sunstroke and solar flares, why we need parasols, and SPF 50.

And we will, too, think of the absence of sun, dark nights, cool morns, and the peasant suns, enthroned over parched jaspered fields.

The apogee, the perigee…
Equinox, solstice.
The sunshine of my life.