For Whom the Tiger Lilies Toll
by Steven McCabe
Tiger Lily,
Jumping at the sun,
Singing to my mother,
Your jitterbugging effervescence
Revisited:
Seen in the rear-view mirror,
In the light of
Swimwear fashion-history
&
The tragic reversal of
Original alchemical
Fortune.
Consider:
The destruction of the Bikini Atoll
By American nuclear testing for war preparedness
(1946),
And the subsequent starvation of relocated islanders,
As well as the irradiation & poisoning of the native, original environment.
Events
Intersected, by the frolic of
Bikini,
Designed & sewn by a Parisian –
Shall I editorialize,
Paraphrasing Yeats: Rag & bone shop
Of the physical,
Or simply,
Fashion design house
Emulating
The blast psychology of the atomic bomb
Within & upon
Contemporary, popular culture,
Mirroring the undoing:
Alchemical atomic nothingness unleashed
Upon
Fauna and flora, coral & the seabed…
Only one year earlier
Undressing & disintegrating
Cities:
Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The Bikini
Introduced to the public
Five days after the blast
On the Atoll.
My mother adored Tiger Lilies.
My brother delivered her ashes
Into a forest,
Spreading them across the roots and moss –
Shaking her into the wind –
Planting again her Tiger Lily bulbs,
Jitterbugging,
On the West Coast.
Where have all the flowers gone?
Original photograph by Grahame Garner (1964) of women with a Ban the Bomb banner in Brisbane, Australia.
Source: http://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:114192
I do not own copyright to this image and have altered it for purposes of non-commercial commentary under fair use provisions.
poemimage 
Bombshell has new meaning for me now!
Heather I appreciate your very fine theatrical example of wit & witticism at work! Thank you. It took me a few minutes of thinking to ‘get it.’
Once again Steven you succeed in sharing a powerful and difficult message with your inimitable style of words and image. Your juxtaposition of personal and world events opens many doors of thought and seeing. Was that really the origin of the bikini? How horrifically surreal the fashion industry can be…
Hi John, Thank you for your thoughts on the thought pathways springing from juxtaposition. Yes I was exploring Dislocation/Reassignment and contrasting two very different physical and emotional realities. Both connected in various degrees to events much later in time. One catastrophically.
The other more garden like.
I’m assuming the fashion designer who named his swimsuit creation did so quite blind to the cause & effects of the realities of the ‘testing.’ Does this lack of awareness absolve the designer of insensitivity? Or can we blame insensitivity on a lack of awareness. Is this a colonial mindset?
The actual origin of the two-piece swimsuit/clothing design seems to have been established in antiquity but fallen out of favour.
If this was the origin of the fashion bikini, how unbelievable and ugly the manipulation.
Hi MN, Perhaps I have added the emotional i.e. scientific/human/natural world interelationship background to the reality, and the designer of the garment (a type of which which had been depicted long ago in wall paintings) was simply thinking “Aha, catchy name!” because an explosion happened somewhere far away at a place of that name days earlier.
It does seem ‘our’ predilection for obliviousness is being challenged by a new awareness of cause & effect involving the natural world and our actions.
You may be creating a new art form with your juxtapositions, Steven. This one threw me into the heart of disassociation, connectedness and spiraling intimacies all at once….a formidable whirling Pandora’s box of reflection.
I should have been a little more well rested to enter the folds of this one….very powerful, Steven. it followed me off the page!
Thank you Jana for these thoughts adding to the process at play. Reactions to the idea makes the idea alive.
Speaking of rest, after a night’s sleep, I reworked a key word. I realized the test events on the island(s) did not ‘lead’ to the design of the garment. But rather; the garment’s invention ‘adorned & dovetailed with’ the public consciousness of the ‘test event.’ Which was no doubt dimly perceived, only one year after the end of WW2, as the French were surely focused on tasks at hand. But how quickly those tasks become things like ‘swimsuits.’
Perhaps if I was very clever I could figure out & say how the TV news (shaping the public knowledge) actually ‘wore’ the swimsuit but that is beyond me.
Your response of disassociation, connectedness and intimacy adds vocabulary to the process and validates the art work. Thank you.
Yes, I see this. This is what I mean Steven…this is viscerally strong stuff. For some reason the image and the words together translate almost a subliminal messaging. I think far beyond the obvious, surface connections. You are tapping into what we have all become attuned to in our medias. The flickering screen, the hypnotic propelling words…only your images and words are taking us to deeper waters….the collective conscience.
The collective conscience…at first I read this as collective conscious…and wondered why you didn’t say ‘subconscious’ instead…but I see your meaning…the word witness comes to mind…as does an interesting phrase somebody once gave to me: ‘witness document.’
I wonder, does the collective conscience & subconscious require ‘witness documents?’
It’s really a good phrase, Steven….’witness document’. The wheels are turning here, Steven.
To me, the subconscious is the same as the collective unconscious. It’s the same territory whether personal or collective. It could be said that I’ve been developing a ‘witness document’ for the collective unconscious.
It could also be said, most definitely, that you are developing a ‘witness document’ for the collective conscience. What an apt description. Frontiers, my friend… Can I use the term? It’s perfectly descriptive …
Isn’t the phrase perfect? Yes, we’ll share it. I think it is now part of the public record and perhaps both an art term and something else public and private. I’d like to include the unconscious in my witness document for the collective conscience as I suspect it’s an ancient voice calling to us that motivates such actions. Fantastic dialogue. thanks again. Great way to begin the day!
Yes…I’ve been listening more closely lately to hearing that voice…. and yes, they are inextricably connected. And only with navigation are we able to see what personally binds them together.
Puts a new spin on the term ‘art work’ … Thanks Steven…right again… great way to begin the day!
Steven, you and Jana have mined gold with “witness document”. It is good for what you do. Tying a thread of consequence and connection from Jana’s “collective conscience” to a blinding world quick to forget, slow to remember. It is pretty special to witness your work and conversation.
Thank you Jack. This contextualizing and vote of confidence is great to have and hear. ‘Tying a thread of consequence and connection…’ A fantastic ethical & philosophical consideration you’ve added.