The Wild Iris Comic

Poem by Louise Glück. Art by Yours Truly, Kaiote.

This Project started back in August of 2023. Eight months later and wow, here we are.

In October 2023, Louise Glück walked through the Final doors to the Other World…

I did not realize in creating this, how deep of a cord Life and Death would sink into me. I knew not the web I was weaving - the web I was being woven into. I had finished all but the last panel when I heard this Poet had Returned to Oblivion, to seek another new, fresh, pure-as-water-from-the-ocean Voice.

The Irony is not lost on me.

I can imagine her laughing with her new bird-song throat out the window.

The gleeful giggling of sweetness to the bitter animals - who impatiently await their turn to open those Wide Red Doors.

Oh, how she must be holding back tears of laughter as she dives deep with the whales, as she runs with the wolves.

The Irony is not lost on me.

If I have received anything from experiencing a poem crafted from Glück’s hands, it would be the fierce and complete embrace of devastation. The insistence that there is beauty, beauty, beauty everywhere.

Despite the grief? With the Grief. From the Grief. Through the Grief.

Thank the Grief, so rich and dark, so covered in light.

Let it pour out and over you always;

All the Harsh,

And

All the Light.

Thank you for reading. Enjoy. ¹

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The Wild Iris Comic

“At the end of my suffering there was a door

Hear me out: that which you call death I remember. Overhead, noises, branches of the pine shifting. Then nothing. The weak sun flickered over the dry surface. It is terrible to survive as consciousness buried in the dark earth.

Then it was over: that which you fear, being a soul and unable to speak, ending abruptly, the stiff earth bending a little.

And what I took to be birds darting in low shrubs. You who do not remember passage from the other world I tell you I could speak again:

whatever returns from oblivion returns to find a voice:

from the center of my life came a great fountain, deep blue shadows on azure seawater."

FIN.

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If you got all the way down here, thanks for reading!

All support for my work and art means the world times 8 to me!

This was a huge project of mine and I can’t quite believe it’s finished. I plan on making more comics in the future, and look forward to sharing them with you all!

Leave a comment or a message if you’d like to share how this poem made you feel, if you have any thoughts or ideas for a comic you’re itching to share, or if you simply want to say hi.

1

"At the end of my suffering
there was a door.

Hear me out: that which you call death
I remember.

Overhead, noises, branches of the pine shifting.
Then nothing. The weak sun
flickered over the dry surface.

It is terrible to survive
as consciousness
buried in the dark earth.

Then it was over: that which you fear, being
a soul and unable
to speak, ending abruptly, the stiff earth
bending a little. And what I took to be
birds darting in low shrubs.

You who do not remember
passage from the other world
I tell you I could speak again: whatever
returns from oblivion returns
to find a voice:

from the center of my life came
a great fountain, deep blue
shadows on azure seawater."

~Louise Glück
First published in a 1992 collection of the same name - The Wild Iris