52
2013
NORTH CAROLINA L I T E R A R Y RE V I E W
number 22
Autumnal Equinox by James Applewhite
Autumn Equinox (mixed media on hand made mirror, 20x16) by Louis St. Lewis
The earth has rotated again on an axis inclined from perpendicular to the plane of the ecliptic by twenty-three and a half degrees. Maple leaves in the canopy lamp back an acknowledging yellow to a source in recession. Oaks higher up give themselves airs in the wind, their lobed leaves handlike, sowers of generations. They plop their acorns on my drive, turning heroically bronze – inadvertent feeders of squirrels, as the dogwoods are of birds, with their scarlet berries. These signals relate to one another, a simultaneous response to progression through the altered rays. Likewise my mind shines back a recognition, seeing these leaves as banners on the billion-masted ship of Earth as it sails in its orbit, with the sun in its galaxy, with the galaxy receding from others. And this mind grows, like the leaves, slightly dizzy, but wakes to a higher intensity, that cannot explain such magnificent, pointless purpose, though glowing within this medium of fruition and perishing. Mind feels itself turn the colors of wonder: scarlet-maroon with beholding, yellow with transiency, green in remembrance – and looking into changes to come, a bronze of enduring. Already, flags of lost summer spin aimlessly as the wind grows chilly. Mind wishes to inscribe its thoughts in a medium like the gold-amber sunlight. The light relates these thoughts, those of squirrels, seeing plenty, those of the leaves, which parachute and spin, and those of this mind, with its memories, which also wobble. The bronze oak stands with nobility, in a firmament too blue for regrets. A maple seed propellers down and lands on the roof of my house, a blessing. The story is a continuing, within changes so tragic, we can hardly believe this other: this tale of sun-angle and colors, of us and Earth in the conscious universe. reprinted from James Applewhite, Selected Poems (Duke University press, © 2005)
Chapel Hill resident Louis St. Lewis attended the North Carolina School of Arts and Stanford University. His work is included in private and permanent collections, including the Ogden Museum for Southern Art, the New Orleans Museum of Art, the Morris Museum of Southern Art, the Masur Museum of Art, and the Ackland Art Museum at UNC–Chapel Hill, as well as in NCLR 2006 and 2008. He is represented by City Art Gallery in Greenville, Broadhurst Gallery in Pinehurst, and Tyndall Galleries in Chapel Hill. See more of his work on his website.