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Regressive Reincarnations

Regressive Reincarnations painting by Teagan White

Regressive Reincarnations (Invisible Walls Closing In)  |  18" x 24"
gouache, watercolor, wildfire charcoal, and collage on paper

REGRESSIVE REINCARNATIONS (INVISIBLE WALLS CLOSING IN)

Antler + Talon gallery
Portland, OR
June 2022


For Fractured Aviary, a group exhibition highlighting bird window strike fatalities, curated by Bayla Arietta. My piece was inspired by an experience I had in the seaside town of Bandon, Oregon a month prior to the show, involving a window strike American Robin, a beached Common Murre, and a hungry Turkey Vulture.


Regressive Reincarnations (Invisible Walls Closing In)

Houses don’t belong on the beach
but some are built here anyway
and I’ve been inside more than one
for reasons less noble than arson

And I strike no matches now
for the tangles of Gorse on the bluffs
would carry death down the coast
like in 1936, when the whole town burned

Someone has drawn an american flag
in the sand with a stick, and I add the flames
while a drone hovers above, mirroring
the stiff-winged Vulture
who craves the source of the carrion-scent
trapped under the thicket of thorns —
the legacy of a settler lord, shaping the earth
in a grotesque imitation of his homeland

Robin lies still on a sun chair
after striking the panel of glass
that provides an exclusive view of the sea
safe from the whispers of wind spirits

Oh warm dead bird in my palm
Oh tunnel of Willow
holding pockets of birdsong
just out of reach
of the ever-spreading Gorse

Oh Vulture with your head thrust deep
in the chest of the stiffening Murre
I want more to offer you
than a meager meal
once every lifetime

In the morning:
a few rosy feathers
scattered on sand
speckled with dew