She Read Phantasmagoric Tales

girl reading on tree

7×9″ charcoal on recycled paper
June 22, 2012

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Inspired by the following passage from A Hidden Life by George MacDonald:

She was not one who of herself could be;
And she had found no heart which, tuned with hers,
Would beat in rhythm, growing into rime.
She read phantasmagoric tales, sans salt,
Sans hope, sans growth; or listlessly conversed
With phantom-visitors–ladies, not friends,
Mere spectral forms from fashion’s concave glass.
She haunted gay assemblies, ill-content–
Witched woods to hide in from her better self,
And danced, and sang, and ached.

About Christi

I am a single mother with two young daughters who are the world to me. I am a philosophy professor, especially fond of Kierkegaard and Augustine. Presently, I teach as an adjunct at a plethora of colleges in the Houston area, trying to make ends meet. Creating art brings me immense joy, but only recently have I begun to venture into the arena of making my creations a consumer commodity. I'd rather my work be created as a good in itself, and given to those I love. But necessity breeds invention, they say, and human beings have to eat.
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