I have another poem up, this time in the Bridges issue of Poetry Porch, with very fine company!
My poem, "Last Step," came from the course in ekphrastic poetry that I taught at the McLean County Arts Center this winter. It's based on Winslow Homer's painting, On the Stile (1878).
I may have seen this up close in the Hopper/Homer exhibit at the Art Institute in Chicago a couple years ago, but the most recent close perusal was in a book.
As vegetables ripen in various gardens around me, I better get ready for a time of "famine" in the literary world: rejection, rejection, rejection, and no forthcoming publications, because that will come.
Meanwhile, I am grateful to be one of the lucky ones in the real world, with real food to eat. I was pondering the reflection in church this past Sunday: one of our pastors is "a curious agnostic" and was speaking of no longer having a personal God in mind when he thinks on these things. Same here, except that when I wake up smiling or find myself full of gratitude for health or safety or good things happening to my children or friends or their children, etc., I whisper, "Thank you, thank you" to the air.
To the pale blue or invisible...air.
You are on fire! It's a lovely poem, too.
ReplyDeleteFeast isn't always followed by famine, either. But it's good to remember those for whom it does.
Thanks, Seana.
ReplyDeleteI spoke of you to my brother and sister-in-law when they visited recently. They had also been shocked by the midday murder in Santa Cruz, and reconsidering walking patterns...
Congratulations on this and all your other published poems, Kathleen. So pleased for you.
ReplyDeleteWhen I read your poem I instantly thought of Erin Morgenstern's Night Circus.
ReplyDeleteThat's interesting. I wonder if I'll meet them someday.
ReplyDeleteI have to say that the death hasn't altered my habits at all, but it seems to have fueled a movement against the homeless, which is unfortunate. Money for mental health has not been a priority in California for a very long time.
A beautiful poem! I love your writing about flowers...something almost mystical going on.
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