A custom commissioned piece by Annika Hein, created for Clean Compound.

Annika is the editor and co-founder of print publication JANE. An advocate for the ‘slow art movement’, Annika is a creative director, writer and mother of two.

Fine art poetry print on 100% cotton rag.
Original limited edition piece, unframed in size A5.
Each piece is signed by Annika Hein with edition number.

Text reads:

You, the timekeeper

fresh from the sleepy halls of the half awake

love on the breath

walking through the depths and the distance

climbing out of the dreamland

into another.

Simmering through the pale waves of midnight

fresh and alight each new morning

shoulders stretched and folded to serve

humbled to a new

role –

this one

of hope and heart

and honour, really.

Gatekeeper of the golden things

the little things that light up a life

drench

the days in meaning.

Full and rich and bursting with markers of time

               the soft of the sheets

               the warmth of the bath

               the beautiful valleys of your home

               and the tenderness, oh, the tenderness!

Catcher of breaths

composer of the calm

their morning moon woken up always

too early

but stretched out and boundless so.

Your heart too

open in full bloom

birthing into the moments that are

many.

Magic or mundane

sometimes even muddied

a matter of the mind –

where the light catches

how you place it together

store the story.

Suspend it a moment longer

just for, just because

begging the beginning to stay

just a little longer.

You, the timekeeper

the memory maker

the guardian of dreams and

destinies

the creator of moments

of a life

their stories –

               yours too

stored in the bones, in the blood

in the body that became a home.

You, the mother

Us, all.