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General Photography Poems and Prose Poems

Insubstantial Chains of Self-Criticism

Recorded by Sean McDermott at Offaly Road Studio, 2022. Read by the author.

At nine o’clock in the morning, serrated leaves by the fence receive the signature of dark steel lines. Dominant chains have eclipsed the delicate veins, and the diamond shapes seem to define the screen of the leaf-surface, imposing rigid patterns on what needs to grow free.

But the fence’s shadow, looping and stamping itself at nine, will be gone by noon, leaving the victorious leaf unchained. After all, it never asked to be cast in a shadow play. Nor did the plant sign a lease with the barricade that straddles its roots. It only desires to rise from the soil in peace.

The tattoo of links is impermanent, for a seemingly solid fence in the morning becomes a shadow of itself as the day wanes. By psychological extension, shifting solar movements can suggest a hopeful metaphor: harmful habits that create barriers to happiness can dissolve like so many shadow-chains. For example, the bruising self-criticism that overshadows confidence and disturbs inner peace may not be the iron-grey shackle of truth we assume.

If distorted thoughts are building a cage one steel rod of fear at a time, consider the power of one question, “Are these thoughts true?” Then take a deep breath and call out chimeras from their hiding places — behind benches of judgment, beneath shaming silences, under tongues that tsk-tsk on the regular — and watch them melt into phantoms with the passage of the sun. Challenge the cruelty that crushes self-love and reject the quelling projections of others. Above all, hold fast to what illuminates, such as visions of leaves that turn fences to trellises, limitless shelters that dapple and shine.

2 replies on “Insubstantial Chains of Self-Criticism”

This is beautiful — and so true. thank you for shining the light on the melting of self-imposed and illusionary fences (on the leaves and on ourselves).

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