I Never Promised You Anything

Cliché. Romance. They’re hard to ignore, from the complex in literature to the simple love song. “I Never Promised You Anything” is the result of planting a rose garden – the battle of expectation, a process of understanding process. Albeit wounded and stinging, it addresses what is possible when talking about love. In the book’s accompanying essay Paola Mieli states, “Had it been in present tense–I don't promise you anything–it would have made room for possibilities. The past tense has the air of a cut, a slammed door. Do you want to look? Take heed: I do not promise you anything. What I offer, so that you may gaze at it, is not necessarily what you seek to see.” Petals fall – descend, change bit-by-bit, form a heap. Descent into an ascent. I thought I was going to lose. Am I gaining instead? The composition is spread out in 12 parts each made for another – a single enunciation. When this spatial-temporal phrase stops, the last image refers back to the first, in a circularity of movement. Gestures freeze – a pause where movement gets halted. Each image a “good” moment, kairos, the opportune repeated moment, like a season’s cycle. 12 months, 12 roses.