last letters

UPDATE 12/10/10: After a long break 6,768 Miles Apart with Diana is now up. Visit Diana at Our City Lights or click on the collage below to be redirected to our photographic collaboration and its pocket history.

"It's almost unbearable to read all the human emotions it covers. It feels like looking into the sun as it's dying." Carol Ann Duffy comments on Ted Hughes' "Last Letters"

Ted Hughes was inscrutable for a number of years after the death of Sylvia Plath. I imagine that his silence played a large part in his vilification. Grief, and perhaps remorse, has steadily become a spectator sport. Images of a silent black hearse trailed by equally silent black-suited men and women, a road lined with crowds that stand twenty-deep, places blanketed by bouquets, letters, and candles. And of course, the anguished tears. Judges on the bench comment about the lack of remorse seemingly displayed by a criminal and it makes me wonder why silence is so often mistaken for indifference. Sometimes, grief, regret, and remorse, can curl up tight inside you, cementing itself between your bones, and sometimes, it feels like every breath rattles with the effort of what you hold in. No wonder you're silent. Perhaps for fear of what would happen, should you ever start to speak.

♥ Flowers for you ♥