I have long been fascinated with the mystery and legends surrounding the vast bog land of western Ireland. Whenever I am there, I follow the Old Bog Road across the dramatic Connemara landscape, and imagine all sorts of stories and folklore. A few years ago, I wrote a lengthy poem about a beautiful woman searching for her lover, who may or may not have been swallowed up by the peat. Admittedly, I tried to make the poem as corny and over-the-top as possible, emulating the epic poems of Keats. I then set out to illustrate the poem with infrared self-portraits as the abandoned woman who goes mad with grief. Hence, The Madwoman of the Bog.

"She appears just in the gloaming now,
Nutmeg tresses, flowing gown.
On the ancestors' land she looks for him,
'neath vast Connemara skies.

Her keening carried by the wind,
Eyes searching 'cross the bog for him,
The Madwoman she has now become,
For her Love has gone astray.

Like Dido's love for Aeneas,
She awaits rebirth of lovers' bliss,
Across the sea's horizon cast,
The Madwoman's gaze in vain.

Her tears of salt and water swim
In oceans of grief and heartache dim,
For just one sail, one final tide,
To bring him home again.

She stood beneath the raging falls
Hoping he would hear her call,
Or see his image in the depth
The murky waters hid.

Within her chambers late at night
She prayed for just one simple sight
That he should come to her once more,
Upon his face to gaze.

Oh, once this lively Sprite did dance,
For him she did, indeed, entrance
With eyes like lures and lips of dew,
Her siren song of Love.

In castles, fields and heathered ben,
In forests deep and misty glen,
They lay entwined on mossy bed,
Clandestine pleasure shared.

But rapture ceased when one dark day
Her secret Lover stole away
And without him, set her heart to die
As misery did fell.

"Where has he gone?" she asked the moon.
Oh, how her grief it did consume
Her every hour, agony,
For ne'er an answer came.

She asked the stars, she asked the sun,
"Why has he chosen now to run
Into the future without me?
Now I am left to mourn!"

Among his family's graves she searched
On one new stone a raven perched.
Alas, his name was not inscribed,
She fainted on the mound.

And so, by chance, if you should see
Her sleeping 'neath the hawthorn tree,
Or hear her Banshee cry at night,
Be kind, and let her be.

She means no harm, she knows but pain,
She wanders weary in the rain.
Eternal rest she'll never find,
The Madwoman of the Bog.