A Poem For Me

When  you stand in front of their grave,

then think of me

When you read their old and familiar names

that I have called and spoken so many times

now chisseled in the green-blue stone,

then think of me

The pain and suffering given as a heavenly gift to me,

because of my love for them

is buried right there, in the ground with them

So, that is the reason why, 

when once again on a Sunday afternoon,

you stand in front of their grave

Do also think of me

and say my name

Laughing, Listening, Loosing ......

LACHEN - LAUGHING

LISTENING  AND LOOSING

ZUHOEREN UND VERLIEREN

CHANGING

VERAENDERN

GRIEFING  TRAUERN

HOPING  HOFFEN

LOVING

LIEBEN

Seen on a cemetary in the German city of Karlsruhe - a very different sort of tomb stone

There Is My Life

There is my life and you can still see me as I was.

This was my life

This was the form of this one life. 

This print is part of a series called " Your Paler Face " that I have been working on for more than two years and that tries to portrait the transition from life through death to another level of existence. This is one of the first prints of this series that I have taken. When death sets in, a certain paleness appears in each and every creature be it human, animal or plant. Paleness, as I mean it, has to be understood also in a symbolic way.The spirit leaves the form and the form gets paler but retains it beauty for a while. This is a sad, delicate and scary moment often.

Death Is A Silent Hunter

Death is a silent hunter

with no shame at all

and who was to witness him when he came in the brightest of light
just the oldest one of trees 

And where there was great beauty once

there is now absolutely none !

And all their mighty 

strong and sharp claws

could not help them at all

escape their grim fate

when this creature's father came along.

Transparency

True transparency comes often with death like the leaves of this dying flower that lived only 2 days.

LIFE'S POETRY

Life is saying a poem in this picture.

The flower has come to a last rest on the fence in absolute elegance and grace. 

Everything is soft and supple and flowing.

The petals look like as if they have transformed into a smooth slightly transparent, pink dyed cotton or linen - light as a feather. 

PINDILE - In Memoriam

Some stories are happy ones and some are sad. This is one of the very sad ones.
These boots have worked hard all their life.
They belonged to Pindile. 
Pindile was a Xhosa man born in the Transkei a former homeland under the Apartheid regime - a rural area in the region were I live.

For 15 years Pindile did the hardest work a man can do on earth - working in the gold mines up north underground. He lost two fingers while working in the deep and dark. One day he stood in front of my gate.
He said he could do everything gazing over my green, wild and neglected jungle that was once a beautiful garden and surrounds the house.

So true. 

He could do everything.
He told me, the moment he lost his job he decided to become a gardener because he needed the color green, he said.

A TRUE GREEN. 
In this moment I knew I needed him and he needed a true green of which I had a lot. 

I got scared watching him how he worked. Hard.
But he said: " It's nothing ", rolling his tobacco in newspaper.

He stayed for three years. 

Then died of a huge tumor in the spine - aged somewhere between 40 and 50.

His boots stayed with me and I have hung them up on my wall in memoriam of a very decent and great man. 

Floating..... The Relative Lightness Of Being

Floating is a series of photographs that I have taken recently

showing light weight floating on water

Simply beautiful to look at. Each one a small miracle. Created during three hours while sitting next to a pool

                                  Showing the relative lightness of life and death............

in all it's colors and structures and forms

These photos are not only beautiful but also symbolic because there are times when things get easy in life and when one is able to float through moments that would have been difficult before 

simply feeling the flow and the lightness....

Connections are formed in these moments with greater powers and energies

but still not lasting forever.....

and when it's over and the weight can be felt again you wonder how you have done it

and are amazed........

But knowing, reassuringly, that you can do it again......

because you know now how it feels 

Pale Dead Beautiful Crab By The Sea

A moment that I have captured during my last holiday at the sea. A pale dead and incredibly beautiful crab lying on the rocks.

Fragile and delicate like life is.