May Every Child Know This Peace
Yesterday, R. and I walked along the perimeter trails of Cheekwood Estate and Gardens in Nashville, Tennessee, among sculptures in the hardwood forest and within the late afternoon light and gentle air of a southern autumn day, a salve to our souls after a week of the most recent war sorrows. Cheekwood’s 55 acres offer varied educational botanical gardens, permanent exhibitions of art across the grounds and within the estate’s buildings, and, currently, Bruce Munro’s expansive “LIGHT” installation (not at its luminous best in the hours we were visiting, but no matter—we’ve previously immersed in its full glory at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center in Austin). From a marker about woodland spring ephemerals, I was reminded of Mary Oliver’s “Trilliums,” and read R. the poem, emotion rising in me (again and always) at Oliver’s vision of “tender buds.” All around us, the meadows and meanders and nooks of the space were robustly and joyfully occupied by diverse families picnicking, playing, and exploring.
We crossed paths repeatedly with one family in particular, a father and his two preschool daughters, the older sporting cat-eye sunglasses and pink-patterned clothing, the younger in rhinestones and a Dollywood tee shirt, both wearing shoes that were probably purchased more for aesthetic whim than practicality. On R.’s and my way toward James Turrell’s “Blue Pesher” (1997-1999) acoustic concrete space—open to the sky and taking advantage of the movements of sound and light for its effects—we also saw a group of teenaged girls we had heard earlier and from a distance, then screaming at each other and laughing together. They wore dresses flowing to the ground, sleeves to their hands, full hijabs secured and color coordinated. Their perfume drifted around and behind them as we passed, their voices stilled by our privacy-interrupting presence, their faces solemn even as I smiled at them.
As R. and I sat on the cool cement bench running around the interior perimeter of “Blue Pesher” and turned our heads up to watch the clouds play across the sky hole above us, the light shifting across the curved walls, the two little girls and their dad approached the tunnel to “Blue Pesher,” unaware of our presence within it. They shouted and stormed in the echoic entry, calls and responses of exuberance and occupation, a dad delighting in his daughters’ energy. Coming across us, they also quieted, only feeling a full measure of freedom within the intimacy of their family, despite our support for whatever movement or sound they wanted to experiment with. We shared the space awhile, then R. and I moved on, and as walked out of their visual range, the father began vocalizing, the melody complex and Middle Eastern in composition and tone, his clear, wordless voice haunting the air.
