*
Buffalo Series, Nº 12
46″ x 60″
Oil on canvas
1979
For those of us who have lost someone,
whose presence now rests in memory
and whose absence shapes who we are.
May this story preserve something of their enduring trace.
*
Julian tried to put into writing what he had dreamed.
—
He wondered: could writing remain faithful to the one who watches, trembles, and longs to understand?
—
He dreamed he was offering his mother a bowl of viper’s broth. The serpent’s head and torn fragments of its body were still writhing, as if unaware of their condition: alive, though undone. He held the bowl with both hands; it had been handed to him by an old woman seated at the far end of a wide, shallow circular pond. The pond seemed to contain more than water—perhaps time, or memory, or fate. Around him loomed shadows—blurred figures repeating the same ritual, or perhaps none at all. He could not tell.
—
The path to his mother was arduous; the ground was slick with a substance he could not name. The air was dense, weighted by an oppressive silence that made each step slow, burdensome. The viper twisted in the broth, struggling to flee. Even so, he kept the bowl steady. He believed—in some quiet corner of himself—that if his mother drank, healing might be reached, or understanding, or peace for them both.
—
When he reached her, he knelt. He spoke gently, urging her to drink while the broth was still warm. “Hold the spoon carefully,” he whispered. “Just small sips.” But she turned her face away. She would not drink. Whether out of fear, pride, or rejection of what was offered, he did not know. The viper shuddered, and his heart tightened in anguish.
—
He awoke unsettled, exhausted. The dream still veiled his perception. His breath was strained, shallow in the thick air of the room. Why couldn’t he find calm? What, exactly, kept him awake?
—
He wondered if it had been a premonition—a latent fear of his own decline. Was the writhing snake a vision of his mind losing its serenity? Were the slow gait, the unstable ground, the trembling hands a rehearsal of his own fading? Or was it grief—that quiet interloper of the soul, forever hungry, never sated?
—
He only knew he had tried to help, to steady, to offer comfort that could not be received. And in doing so, he faced not only the absence of his mother, but the shadow of his own dread—the question of who would walk beside him when his own farewell arrived.
—
But perhaps—he thought—there is something sacred in the attempt. In the offering, even when refused. In the slow advance—however uncertain it may be.
There, humility may dwell:
the kind that does not demand,
and yet disarms pain
by its presence—
too steady to be cast aside.
It meets no resistance—
only the quiet invitation to be welcomed.
*
Ricardo F. Morin Tortolero
Bala Cynwyd, Pa, June 2, 2025
