prairie psalm

The other day – a bouquet inside a keystone can. Now, that’s it isn’t it? Written into the prairie is a voice as rustic as it is sweet. There’s space to look at light upon here. The burn piles are bigger. As are the hearts. People are always asking for the photograph to speak plainly. People are asking for the photograph to reveal itself. But it is neither a faithful replication of the world nor a document of anything other than an exchange. Four hands are embracing in their own ambiguity - their arms are folded over each other. They are friends and they are lovers and they are sisters. When I make a photograph of you in February we are poised in an honest and erotic exchange down by the tracks by the hillside. I lost my glasses in the bunch grass and I held your chin up with my hand and stared at you like I was the camera. The gesture is both the intent of the photograph and the movement of the body inside the photograph. It’s what wills the image to speak. Hands contain energy - and at times - landscapes. Anything can be a psalm if it is hallowed like one.

— June T Sanders