In the liminal hours,
when the stars have dulled or disappeared,
the sky with its arms of milky white
reaches for the city’s many surfaces.
Streetlights turn off in unison,
dogs howl in faraway fields
and birds begin to whistle along pathways
favoured only by the very young,
the mad or the unseen.
Sleepless, alone, I like to think someone
somewhere is looking out their window too.
Someone to whom I’m betrothed
in an unlikely union
solemnised through our wee hour ruminations.
Someone who marvels at how the windowpane —
mirror by night —
turns window again,
bathed in the celestial glow that precedes sunrise,
hallowing every surface.
Someone who too dreads
the stupor heralded by daylight
but is for now alive
with pre-dawn ecstasies,
the night in their hair.
Shirin Abedinirad, Liminal, 2022. Land art, Tehran, Iran. Set against the vast and open landscape, the work explores what the artist describes as “the threshold between worlds,” placing a solitary door within a space of suspension, possibility, and becoming. Inviting viewers to contemplate the in-betweenness that shapes human experience, the installation becomes a meditation on pause, passage, and the step into the unknown. Artwork courtesy of featured artist Shirin Abedinirad.
