What I See: Rashaun Rucker x Peter Markus
Slow Dance with My Father with No Music
by Peter Markus
I am sitting here in the morning darkness
thinking of you. Father. How you will never
read the poems I have been writing about you
these past fourteen months. What I was seeing
as I watched you die. Watching you live on.
Going to your bedside. Lifting you up into a chair
with wheels to shave you. So that your wife
who is my mother still could change the sheets
on the metal bed with a view looking out at the river.
So I could feed you too. And brush your teeth.
Trim your hair. Little things, yes. Acts that require
patience. And tenderness. And a willingness
to let go when it got to be too much. For a time
you were able enough to walk the few steps
to get back into bed. But even this, after a while,
got to be too much to expect. Too much to do.
And so I would pick you up myself. I would tell you
to put your arms around me. Give me a hug. Hold on.
I won't drop you. I promise. On the count of three.
And I would lift you gently up. And for a few seconds
with no music playing this is how we would dance.
The Calming by Rashaun Rucker
(after the poem Slow Dance with My Father with No Music by Peter Markus)
marker and ink ( 9x12”)
Rashaun Rucker's reaction to what he saw in Peter Markus’ poem:
“There were two parts that actually inspired me. The first line: I am sitting here in the morning darkness thinking of you. And later in the poem: I would tell you to put your arms around me. Give me a hug. Hold on. I won't drop you. I promise.''
In the drawing Rucker, a father of two boys, is pictured holding his son Carter.
“I was thinking in reverse when reading it, and how I dance with him, and his autism, and how since quarantine I have been comforting him as he cries himself to sleep, and how that dance brings us closer, and who will dance with him when I die.The poem made me think of that dance and care for someone. It was therapeutic.''
What I See is a curated project aimed at creating conversation between artists during a moment of unprecedented isolation. Kresge Arts in Detroit invited fellowship and Gilda Award recipients to create new work inspired by and in response to the works in progress recently shared by their colleagues. In highlighting the connections and mutual inspiration produced through these collaborations, it is abundantly clear how creativity radiates and can deepen existing community networks and lead to new connections. This project is a new addition to our efforts to resource and activate the arts and culture community of Detroit, of which those of us on staff are proudly a part.
What I See logo by Asukile Gardner.
Art by its nature is pure exchange.
We look and we marvel. We hear and we heal.
We read and we wonder.
Rarely do we know, do we see what the creator
first saw, or the hope that they in turn entrust
to the eyes and minds of others.
That conversation between source and subject is
as rich and worthy, and mysterious as the end
creation. This is art’s constant invitation: to see
and see again, until we see. Sometimes ourselves.
Sometimes our world, sometimes into realms
unknown.
A more raw and wondrous window has yet to
exist. Until one does, may art, and those who answer
its call, continue to do what only they can — making the unseen seen in ways once unimagined.
— Nichole M. Christian, Kresge Arts in Detroit 2020