Ekphrasis 2022

EKPHRASIS 2022

A Visual Writing Event in Honor of Susan deWardt

EKPHRASIS 2022 | 1

EKPHRASIS 2022

Oil Painters of America’s 31st National Juried Exhibition of Traditional Oils -------------------------Table of Contents Layla Baker – La Playa del Sol, Timothy Rees..................................................................................... 3 Diana Holguin Balogh – Connected, Vincent Figliola........................................................................... 4 Paul Bonnifield – Connected, Vincent Figliola...................................................................................... 5 Sandy Conlon – Return of Spring, Ken Backhaus................................................................................. 6 Patrick Curran – She Waits for Eternity, Laura Barrow......................................................................... 8 Chase Demos – Stealth - Amor Tiger, Linda Besse............................................................................. 10 Kora Demos – Raking Light at Ghost Ranch, Barbara Coleman......................................................... 11 Tessher Feinberg – Night Approaches, Cristen Miller......................................................................... 12 Harriet Freiberger – Game of Life, Richard H. Alexander................................................................... 13 John Grassby – Connected, Vincent Figliola....................................................................................... 14 Kathi Guler – Untamed, Johne Richardson.......................................................................................... 16 Johannah Hildebrand – Was a Brisk Morning Sun, Larry Seiler.......................................................... 18 Dee Hubbard – Timberline Fall, Kathleen Hudson.............................................................................. 19 Rachel Jackson – Sunflowers in Vase, Jane Manco.............................................................................. 21 Larry Klingman – Gossamer, Connected, Vincent Figliola................................................................. 23 Ila Ladrow – Sing Me a Slow Song, Dottie Leatherwood.................................................................... 24 Wendy Lind – King of the Wild Things, Ana Rose Bain...................................................................... 25 Nancie Mccormish – Cold Road, Stan Rodgers................................................................................... 26 Dagny McKinley – After the Storm, Nancy Howe............................................................................... 28 Cesare Rosati – Balancing Act, Richard Boyer.................................................................................... 29 Rusty Rose – Incoming Tide, Laguna Beach, Calvin Liang................................................................ 31 Barbara Sparks – Family Farm, Carolyn Lindsey............................................................................... 32 Ethan Summers – Rising Sun on Isis Temple, Clifford V. Barnes........................................................ 34 Jennifer Summers – Beach Beauty, Camille Przewodek .................................................................... 35 Marian Tolles – Incoming Tide, Laguna Beach, Calvin Liang ............................................................ 36 MelissaVanArsdale – Balancing Act, Richard Boyer........................................................................... 37 Joella West – Vintage MG Dash, Bobbie Crews Thurston................................................................... 38

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Inspired by La Playa del Sol

by Timothy Rees

Layla Baker (youth – age 14)

Take your sister to the sea Let her play in the water, She said.

Make her laugh. It’s been a long time since either of us heard her laugh.

She hasn’t laughed since…

Well. I wouldn’t talk to her about that if I were you. If she even talks to you at all.

Just let her laugh. Let her play Like she used to all the time Splash her with the water just like he used to do.

Make her feel like you’ll make everything okay.

I’m trying to make everything okay.

But sometimes…

I think the ocean will help her.

Overcome everything. Get past everything.

Accept everything.

It’s a little too much for a girl her age to handle, I think.

Do you remember When he used to take you two to the beach?

He would bring a basket and fill it with cherry pie and cookies.

I used to be annoyed with him Because he would never pack anything healthy for you two.

It’s funny, the things I used to get angry at him for.

I shouldn’t have said that. Now you’re sad too. I’m sorry.

Take your sister to the sea And dance and sing as loud as you want And splash in the water and she’ll see That you can be happy again That you should be happy again.

Say, are you wearing those overalls From when your father was a boy?

You’ve grown so much… you look just like him.

I see more of him in you…

What about me? I should go?

No, no. I think it’s better if it’s just you two. Like it used to be.

Just please make her laugh. I miss her laugh so much. That’s all I need To be happier.

Take your sister to the sea. u

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Inspired by Connected by Vincent Figliola

Diana Holguin Balogh

Even door beats – knuckles on wood, knuckles on wood.

Each knock punches her gut blows.

She clenches her throat.

Silence, then unseen thunderous raps sound again.

Edge of a thin curtain eases away.

A sliver of sunlight invades the dark room, Outside predatory intent illuminates.

Chota cops, Las Cruces PD, policia, damn be us…

“Mr. Salamon Ramirez, are you in there?”

Shattering, icicle thoughts empale her racing mind.

“Have a warrant here for your arrest.”

She shakes her father. Eyes shift panic… she to her father, her father to her.

Silent screaming moments pass like the crackling of heaven.

Like the quake of hell.

They’re here for Apá, her protector, her end all.

With a slow side nod, Apá tightens his face. …

Half asleep, uncle’s weight had smothered her.

Foul early morning breath reeked above her in breathy gasps.

No words were spoken, for that was the other uncle.

A searing pain knifed up into her.

Slimy, oily, mucous dotted and entered her virginity.

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She grunted helpless pleas.

When the door broke open to a bearlike figure, her apá stood like Absalom to Tamar.

Tío Severo had had his dirty way with her.

Apá, Salamon Ramirez, had his way with him.

Bloodied from bald head to flaccid head, Severo’s filthy act met its consequence.

And after the red light raced away, nothing was left but shame.

In shame hid their unspoken memory.

In vengeance, the shameful secret lay buried. …

“Apá, don’t answer.”

Salamon’s pressed jaw strain a dooming surrender.

Door opens.

White plastic ties snap a pinching rear-stack cuff.

“Mr. Severo Candelaria died this morning at Three Crosses.”

“You’re charged with his death.”

“You have the right to remain silent.”

“What you say can be used against you.”

“And you have a right to an attorney.”

In a jerk, he’s forced out the door.

She rushes to hug him one last time.

Grasping loose khaki would not stop time.

Head down over hers, they became one alliance.

“Apa,” Her tears wet his chest. “Vaya con Dios.” u

Inspired by Connected by Vincent Figliola

Paul Bonnifield

Seeking Justice

The lady is always there, but it’s impossible to see her with the naked eye. You feel her presence somewhere in the inner workings of the soul.

We know what she looks like, or at least think we know. Her task is probably the most difficult and most necessary in all civilization. She sits on a throne with her arm outstretched holding balance scales. Balancing the scales of justice, she is measuring all the elements of knowledge, of good and evil, of right and wrong.

They stood before Lady Justice’s watchful eyes. His hands bound behind his back, father and daughter knowing he would soon be hauled to prison and remain for years – perhaps executed. The lady with the scales must consider his nefarious deeds. How many lives were taken?

How much suffering was caused? Big time drug running, drug sales – clearly a dangerous and evil occupation. Perhaps he is the head of a ruthless cartel that buys and sells people, governments, and human dignity. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, have died at his command.

love is forever. Connected, they cannot let go of each other. Love must have a measure in seeking justice.

It is written, “Judge ye not; Lest ye be judged by your own standard.” What standard shall we use. In the harsh world where the villain lived, it was impossible to feed and provide for the family.

Drug dealing was not only necessary, it was the only way. Many have faced the dilemma to either deal in drugs or starve. They cannot seek a better life up north. North has built a wall, telling the poor and desperate people they are not welcome.

Lady Justice must inquire, Who is the criminal that committed the crimes?

So long ago, the poet John Donne wrote, “Ask not for whom the bells toll. They toll for Thee; For no man is an island unto himself.” He will go to prison, perhaps the gallows. She will cry her heart out and suffer long. But, what about the other criminals who throw stones while hiding their involvement. u

Yet, it is written, “Know ye the truth and the truth will set you free.” What is it Lady Justice must know before she passes judgement? The scale has two trays. The daughter stands clinging to her father’s shirt, pressing her head against his chest. He lowers his head above her. Clearly, their EKPHRASIS 2022 | 5

Inspired by Return of Spring

by Ken Backhaus

Sandy Conlon

Art Song

From this solitary labor springs forth abundant perspectives, myriad ways of seeing patterns of color embodied in the odd and beautiful things of this world.

American poet Wallace Stevens saw at least 13 ways of looking at a black bird.

Now here we are in the museum with maybe 113 ways of looking – aspen trimmed in saffron, sea-green and sky-blue oceans, picturesque lakes, horses whinnying in the morning mist, seascapes, fruits and flowers, and just five small black birds sweet trilling in the willows, sure harbingers of spring.

Hillsides of terra cotta, amber, and burnt sienna, human faces and faraway places, 113 perspectives – fields in winter white, silver-streaked rocks and rills like tungsten steel in the afternoon light reflected in the eye of a blackbird.

Blackbirds I have known lurk in timber breaks and moss-green meadows by riverbanks, fluttering about searching for crumbs and seed.

There’s no mistaking them for shades from the underworld or shadow partners in some mystic union.

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In the museum once more and 113 ways of seeing – wooden fences, scrub oak, mountain ash chili-pepper red, and the blackbird’s iridescent hues piercing the clouds, a sunset glowing vermillion, opalescent rose, and shadows shading dense undergrowth in deep viridian, indigo, and cobalt blue.

Perspective and variety created by the painter’s palette – a blackbird perched on a tall reed, not stirring from a bird’s eye view while the hawk hungrily circles a ferret in hiding – the lucid and ineluctable rhythms of necessity and desire.

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Inspired by She Waits for Eternity

by Laura Barrow

Patrick Curran

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The rising sun cast dark shadows to the east of Spider Rock, as Spider Lass, slipped in hard, and fast. “Mattie” Franklin the Liberator, AKA, Spider Lass donned her rock climbing rack at the base of the canyon floor, the Tsegi. She, a NavahoWarrior-Princess was chosen by the Tribe to break the curse of Spider Man. Only then could the Eternal Tribe pass freely back to Earth and bring peace and everlasting life – iiná doo ninít’i’ii She loaded her climbing rack for the nine pitch, eight hundred foot, class five climb. Hands and feet at first, then wide stem moves, then free climbing – crimping, jamming, clinging…then she’d build an anchor with cams, slings and hooks.

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Sure Mattie could free solo, but this was a major assault of Spider Rock to liberate the Twin Towers. She needed to build rock climbing anchors and hang bivey gear to conquer her father, Spider-King-the-Chauvinist. Senile and off his meds, he had become a mad-rapping misogynist casting his deadly webs at the top of the towers. Climbing anchors were also needed to launch Mattie’s web shooter.

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To be fair, Mattie was not a card-carrying misandrist (hater of men) yet, she did not refer to her father as Poppa-Dearest... she hoped to change his mind and free her mother, Spider Woman from bondage. When Mattie was a young Navaho Princess, her mother had taught her to weave cotton into cloth, and to weave beauty into life and spread the “Beauty Way” – the need for balance among the mind, body and spirit.

In beauty I walk with beauty before me I walk with beauty behind me I walk With beauty above me I walk with beauty around me I walk, it has become beauty again.4 *** Sure Mattie was a still girl, but an ardent girl on a mission. Hers was a rite of passage from girl to woman. Hell no, she would not wait for eternity to right the wrongs of the fallen world.

She would seize the day. From the summit of Spider Rock, she would weave a lifeline to the heavens – so the “beauty way” could return.

She bowed her head and took an oath to the Navaho Nation, “Naabeehó Bináhásdzo”, then gathered her courage for the climb. She alone took responsibility for the liberation–no room for victims on Spider Rock.

To be transparent, Spider Lass was clairvoyant, a desert drifter, a shape shifter, and a time traveler. She knew the world had been spinning off its axis for years and was headin’ yet again for Armageddon; she also knew that ManGods with their “eye for an eye justice” could not save the world. And yes indeed, she knew of men like Hitler, Stalin, Putin, Mao and Xi Jinping; and yes she prayed for peace in Ukraine. Mattie would liberate Spider Woman, and they could weave a web back up to heaven and unite the earth with the Beauty Way. Mattie conquered many monsters of freedom as she scaled Spider Rock: Ideologues in the fog; theocrats in the sand of Afghanistan, and Shadrack of the lightening and fiery nights.

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Mattie pressed her hands together and prayed that the free world would unite and triumph over tyranny; then fell to her knees and thanked Ukrainian Freedom Fighters for showing the world just what courage and resilience looks like.

After liberating Spider Woman, she carved a petroglyph into the red sandstone summit: We will have the beauty way, even if we have to fight for it.7

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All of them droning of existential threats and offering fast tracks to Utopia. Mattie learned there are snakes in every garden, and that we all must lean-into the eternal struggle for survival – to confront our snakes. No way! Mattie was not waiting for Eternity!

Mattie smiled as she thought of totalitarian regimes seeking to conquer the free world.

Regimes that controlled the press and free elections, and those without democratic checks and balances or self-correcting mechanisms.

Mattie laughed when she read Stephen Kotkin’s biography: Stalin, Waiting for Hitler, and noted once again, how closed dictatorships often collapse from within. Seriously, who is going to tell Hitler, or Stalin, or Putin – Excuse me your High Holiness... but your grand scheme is not working?

Footnotes 1. Photo of painting, She Waits for Eternity, by Laura Barrow, Steamboat Are Museum 2. Spider Woman Stock illustrations *https://thumbs.dreamstime. com/b/arachne-spider-woman-cobweb-hand-drawn-vector-illustration-engraved-line-art-drawing-black-white-doodle-see-allfantasy-88244572.jpg 3. IBID, Web shooter, Spider Woman Stock illustrations *https:// https://www.google.com/search?q=Free+Clip+art,+Spider+Woman,+web+shooters&rlz=1C1EJFC 4. Navaho Beauty Way, https://www.google.com/ search?rlz=1C1EJFC_enUS901US902&sxsrf=ALiCzsaukGar_O1AO1kXYrWLdP5cqoMVFQ:1656267465555&q=Navajo+Beauty+Way&spell=1&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjHyb-P3cv4AhWGKkQIHd8DCugQkeECKAB6BAgBEDI 5. IBID, Spider Woman Stock illustrations 6. Paraphrasing President Eisenhower comment

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Inspired by: Stealth - Amor Tiger

by Linda Besse

Chase Demos (youth – age 8)

Triggered VIcious dark monster MunchinG on the fish ThEy scattered away PRotecting family u

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Inspired Raking Light at Ghost Ranch by Barbara Coleman

Kora Demos (youth – age 11)

A Diamante Poem

Canyon Wide-open, Colorful Echoing, Rumbling, Calming Down the canyon, up the canyon Hiking, Climbing, Bouldering Majestic, Superb, Edge u

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Inspired by: Night Approaches

by Cristen Miller

Tessher Feinberg (youth – age 12)

Gone to the Woods

Gone to the Woods; is the sunrise of deepest red, The lone moonbeam shining, across the lake, like a long-forgotten beam from a rundown lighthouse. While we all lie in bed, asleep under the stars, wrapped in blankets of warmth: waves of heat circling about us. A fisherman rises, and as daybreak approaches, he scrapes frozen crystals of ice from the cold, gray, frozen, river; to prepare for his loving family; a worthy meal. While he fishes the sun returns from its deep slumber piercing the sheets of ice with golden rays the frozen river cold and gray, sunshine; to melt the cold away.

Gone to the Woods Gone…

Gone…

GONE… to the Woods. u

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Inspired by Game of Life

by Richard Alexander

Harriet Freiberger

Game of Life

Living cannot be a simple game to play.

Much less to understand.

Rather, show to those who sneer with doubting scorn the canvas of this thing named Alife@ Let them hear its colors speak in human voices – reverberating sounds revealing brightness of tomorrows – through clarity of seeing what has come before in countless circlings of this earth around the burning fire that centers planetary orbit.

Centuries counted and recorded reveal the process – lands and waters; humans quarreling, taking, fighting until finally learning, seeing something more; stretching, reaching, growing out of frantic youthful eagerness toward and into building – fullness.

Chisels, planes, hammers, hatchets, pliers and screws stretching, reaching, teaching, building . . . walls and bridges, highways over lands and seas, powered travel extending into vastness of all that lies beyond and underneath and in between the hidden worlds yet soon to be discovered on the canvas of this thing named Alife.@ Words and colors speak to those who will become the tools to make it happen.

What has been becomes a part of what will be.

Living cannot be a simple game to play

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Inspired by Balancing Act by Richard Boyer and Connected by Vincent Figliol

John Grassby

The judge’s bench is elevated well above the rest of the courtroom. This, the old-before-hertime little girl notes, enables him to look down – literally and figuratively – on all the lesser beings crowded into the hot, humid space. The stench of nervous sweat is overpowering. Accompanied only by his court-appointed lawyer, the little girl’s father, appearing smaller and more beaten down than she remembers him being, stands in front of the judge. It has been obvious to the little girl from the outset, that the lawyer resents having been appointed to this case and his desultory representation has reflected that. She cannot hear his brief pre-sentencing words to the judge, but when he and the judge laugh together, shrug, and shake their heads in evident mutual exasperation at the moral turpitude of all defendants, she knows to expect the worst. In a louder voice than 14 | EKPHRASIS 2022

necessary to be heard over all the others, the judge announces, “The court having previously found you guilty as charged, you are hereby sentenced to three years in state prison. Let this be a lesson to you and all your countrymen who seem to think you can waltz across the border at will, then misbehave however you want.” The little girl sees her father sag even more.

Before the hearing her father had taken her aside to say, “Ay, m’hija querida – my daughter, my beloved daughter. Your dear departed mother and I are why you were born in this tortured time and place, this maelstrom known as la frontera, or the borderlands – a no man’s land marked only by arbitrary, otherwise meaningless lines in the desert. On one side one culture dominates, on the other side another, each fundamentally different from the other, each with its own reality

foreign to anything known to the other. Each side has its own rules, its own reality, if you will, each largely incomprehensible to the other. Yet both sides greatly need and depend on the other to an extent seldom fully realized, let alone appreciated.

But for seemingly unlimited numbers of ready willing and able workers – currently about 15 million – at least a dozen different industries and businesses crucial to the economy of the north would be unable to function. In the south, only oil, tourism, and possibly the cartels contribute more to the overall economy than remittances wired from the north to those – mostly family members – still in the south. The racism, double standards, hypocrisy, and corruption of north and south alike in these arenas defy description.

To survive between the two cultures requires walking a razor’s edge, with ever changing rules and long, steep, slippery slopes on each side. Even with great mindfulness and good balance, it is difficult and hazardous in the extreme to traverse that winding, twisting edge for very long before tumbling off to one side or the other. Having once fallen off you are deemed to have squandered your opportunity and it is very difficult to climb onto that path again. My crime, repeated a hundred times a day, but without being caught, was bringing nannies north for wealthy northern matrons. For this inability to keep myself and my activities balanced, I am now being punished and sent away for a while. Until I return, you will stay with family – your mother’s sister and her children. She is very poor but very loving. You will be taken in and taken care of. I will miss you every day and more than I can express.”

Following a perfunctory exchange between the judge and the lawyer, apparently to showcase the humanity of the system, the little girl and her father are allowed to briefly speak and say goodbye. His hands are pointlessly cuffed behind his back making it impossible for him to hold her, but she holds him tightly enough to almost make up for that. He is so emotionally distraught he can’t speak, but she almost makes up for that by telling him how much she loves him.

The little girl’s sadness and sense of loss is devastating but, under no circumstances, will she reveal that weakness to anyone, least of all anyone in this courtroom or belonging to this alien culture. Then, a burly uniformed bailiff twice her father’s size tightens his grip on her father’s arm and leads him away. She will never see him again. u

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Inspired by Untamed

by Johne Richardson

Kathi Guler

Solitude

As darkness falls, I listen for the wild horses.

The same every night. The late afternoon light has heated the house. I lie here, waiting for it to cool.

No stir in the air. The fields have quieted: birds gone to roost, pronghorn resting. Only crickets skritching and the occasional coyote howl.

I am no rancher. Just an old woman who needs the solace and solitude of wideopen spaces.

A simple house seated on summer’s green and gold rolling rangeland of the Divide’s Great Basin. A sky sometimes a blue that’s bluer than bluebirds, other times a ferocious thunderhead with dark grey skirts full of rain and spikes of lightning. All the creatures who belong here. This makes me happy.

Drifting, my mind latches onto my memories of the horses. Hundreds, roaming free, unfettered. The land needs them as much as they need the land. Inseparable. As it should be.

Over the years one paint mare often wandered to me when she saw me. A few other horses would trail after her, curious but staying back, letting her greet me with a soft whicker, her deep brown eyes wary but kind. Like a mother.

Never knew my mother—died when I was a young child. Only a single grey-toned photograph left behind, cracked and faded, a stiff figure in a frumpy dress.

The memories flow, dreamlike. I see the day when one of those fierce thunderstorms comes, blowing up before I make it home. I try to run but can’t see through the heavy rain. Slide 16 | EKPHRASIS 2022

on the grass. Fall in sluicing mud. Trapped in wild brambles. Stunned. Soaked. Try to regain footing, keep sliding. The brambles cover a slight decline towards a stream. I hear it rush, harder, faster. The air so thick with water, I can barely breathe. Crawling up the slope, I break free of the brambles, but rivulets have joined into a wide sheet of liquid mud racing to the crumbling embankment and into the rising creek.

I drag a leg up, press a knee into the soft ground. My head aches from difficulty to breathe.

Drive another knee forward. Water pulses off the brim of my hat and I shiver as weakness and cold seep into my bones.

Sound, muffled in the downpour, is indistinct. A neigh? Hoofbeats? I shake my head.

Delusional. But it comes again, closer, louder.

Another neigh. The mare walks towards me, whickering a soft rumble in her throat.

She dips her head, looks me in the face, whickers again, her eyes calm, patient. My hands tremble. I reach for her. My knees slip. Fall flat in the mud once more. She steps closer, dips again.

On hands and knees, I reach, grasp a handful of long, dripping mane.

Mud races away from under me. I fall once more. Exhausted, afraid to try again. A move too fast and I’ll be swept down into the stream.

The mare whinnies. The rain is slowing, but the water on the ground still runs too swift, digs deeper. Can’t wait longer. To lie still means death.

She dips her head once more and I grab her

mane, winding hanks of it around my hand and wrist. She starts backing, and I feel myself dragged, up, up through the mud, over the crest of the slope, through sagebrush, onto gravelly ground. She stops, waits while I cough mud and water out of my mouth and nose, wipe it from my eyes.

In time, I stumble onto my feet, arms around her neck, eyes shut. Pressure leans on my shoulder.

Breath inhales, exhales in my ear. The pressure increases, guiding me farther from the creek.

Eyes opening, I find the mare’s soft brown eyes watching, ears pricked forward.

“Mama,” I whisper, naming her, breathing in her sweet aroma mixed with the storm smells. Her head rests, cheek against mine, muzzle over my shoulder, the rumble in her throat comforting. For the longest time, we stand locked together in the waning storm.

I wake. Midnight on the clock. I’ve not seen Mama since that day I named her. They – I refuse to mention who they are – took the wild horses away. Don’t know if Mama survived. Many did not, fiercely refusing to be rounded up. Death rather than capture. I sympathize.

In the empty night, I still hear them, their spirits – running free, untamed. Mama is with them. u

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Inspired by Was a Brisk Morning Sun by Larry Seiler

Johannah Hildebrand

We Are Here

Here to be here soul-filled sunlight shining through branches warming fresh fall snow melting lazily dropping quick and icy plunking against decaying growth ice and twigs crack under foot mulch pungent, as steam rises dripping promise on the day breath shallow clouds form waiting for the implosion exploding then back to the day this day days before the dreams our hearts not yet ready for all the storms we are going to weather before the spring

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Here I’ve been here before you’ve been here too did we dream it or is it in all of us this place where the sun shines through to the brisk fall morning and the leftover leaves poke up to say hello to the new snow woods. u

Inspired by Timberline Fall

by Kathleen Hudson

Dee Hubbard

In the Embrace of Heaven

A NATURAL BEACON, it guided pioneer families to a new life in the mountain west. Now, Longs Peak attracts seekers of a different kind.

Like worshippers trekking to a hallowed place they come.

MY HEADLAMP ILLUMINATES the trailhead register, and my hand trembles with excitement as I sign in. There, I’ve joined the ranks of others drawn to this historic mountain seeking… what?

Solace? Redemption? A vision of perfection in an imperfect world? Maybe adventure, challenge, and a tiny speck of fame? Perhaps even a new destiny revealed? I laugh and shake my head, thinking, you’re too solemn this morning. Lighten up. Most just come to climb the mountain.

Today I celebrate my 65th birthday by soloclimbing my first Fourteener, a bloody tough one. Over 60 climbers have died here. I want to savor a blazing red sunrise on the mountain’s East Face, but won’t even see its peak until I reach the cascades of Timberline Falls. Facing me is a vertical mile of elevation gain into thin air. Maybe twelve hours on the mountain. But I’m firm in my

resolve. Already celebrating a different victory… over my own self-doubts… I raise a mittened hand, form a fist of triumph, and pump it at a moonlit sky.

My headlamp casts an inquiring shaft of light into the dense forest before me and focuses on a path burrowing ahead like a tunnel. Breathing deeply, I exhale mini clouds of condensation into frigid mountain air and stride forward with methodical steps. The forest closes around me, and I shiver. At what? Not the cold. Something’s missing. There are no external sounds. I hear only my breathing. How rare is that!

Impatience nags me, but I’m mindful not to burn too much energy too soon. A slow but steady pace is best. Conserve strength but squander exuberance. Both are possible. Find my natural climbing rhythms and maintain them as long as I can. I have time and elevation goals for each route segment. But, I remind myself, plans and goals aren’t sacred. Don’t deny impulse.

True adventure may require changing plans and deferring goals. Inflexibility equals opportunity lost.

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AERIAL PHOTOS I’VE STUDIED crowd my mind. In them a massive mountain range bisects Rocky Mountain National Park. Rising above a crowd of surrounding peaks, a broad, truncated summit thrusts upward. Shaped like a giant closed fist, Longs Peak challenges the sky.

Confrontation has consequences, and I know the sky may respond with shrieking winds, torrential rain, freezing sleet, stinging hail, and yes, blinding snow, even in summer. I accept weather risks. Ignoring them is foolhardy. A summit attempt on the calendar’s longest day just might get me a worry-free descent as well as a unique scene at sunrise and a difficult summit attained.

EXCEPT FOR THE FAINT huh-h-h-h…uh-h-h-h of my breathing, silence envelops me. Rhythmic click-clacking of my hiking poles is the only external sound I hear. But then – there in the last grove of stunted pines below Timberline Falls – a natural sound, lyrical and full of joy greets the dawn. A warbling birdsong sweeps toward me.

Other voices join. Soon a full chorus greets me. A celebration of being, I think. Enjoy the day is their message. I doff my cap, bow, and clap a mittenmuted applause.

LEAVING THE RUSH AND BABBLE of the Falls behind, I plod up a glacial moraine, carrying my hiking poles horizontally so I can relish highmountain stillness. My eyes focus down to windtwisted krummholz patches that soon give way to alpine tundra whose frosted surfaces glisten, silver-tipped in pale light. Raising my gaze, I watch a pyramidal tip form. It appears to pierce the moon. As if erupting from Earth, the tip enlarges. Then the sheer, diamond-shaped East Face of Longs Peak rises into view.

I stop and point to the summit with a hiking pole. My mind races ahead, and I imagine myself up there… there at the top, at the rim of a precipice where Earth ends and the heavens begin, standing alone at the edge of eternity. From there, I look down to where 20 | EKPHRASIS 2022

I stand presently; see other hikers only as tiny moving specs dwarfed into insignificance by an overwhelming landscape surrounding them. I wonder: How will I feel in a place where hopes and dreams, Earth and sky meet in a perfect union that joins an old man’s longings to nature’s rewards.

Then I remember an aging mountaineer’s eulogy to standing on summits.

“Like resting in the embrace of heaven.” u

Inspired by Sunflowers in Vase

by Jane Manco

Rachel Jackson

After the last snowflake melts, after the first raindrops fall from the awakening skies, after the thawing soil is tilled for planting, when the vernal sun breaks over the eastern horizon, a certain field of sunflowers begins its annual bloom, and Dolores begins watching from the farmhouse next door to see which sunflower will reach maturity first each year – it is that flower upon whose stem she will tie her daughter’s white hair ribbon, the one she wore on her quinceañera.

It is no longer Dolores’s family’s field of sunflowers – she sold the land years ago, after the accident – but the owners permit her to walk through the field as she pleases, as she must. It is her ritual. When from her east-facing window she sees the first glint of yellow emerging shyly from behind its leaves to greet and follow the shining sun, she walks purposefully, reverently, toward it, her annual journey underway.

Weaving through rows of green leaves, she nears it, a folded little thing with hesitant petals bent inward on themselves, not yet a mature, dignified sunflower but painted enough with a tinge of vibrant yellow to cause a sting of tears to form at the back of Dolores’s eyes.

Yellow was Mariposa’s favorite color. The blooming of the sunflower field every summer was a homecoming for her, enraptured as she was by the feeling of warm sunshine on her face, cool dirt between her toes, and the subtle earthy scent of growth all around her – every year in the field she grew stronger, ran faster, reached higher. She was drawn to the field as butterflies are to nectar.

Her first steps as a baby were taken near the field, her mother told her often, painting a vivid verbal picture of little Mariposa in bare feet wobbling unsteadily at first, holding onto her mother’s pinky finger until Dolores slowly pulled her hand away and Mariposa tottered joyfully along on her own.

Her last steps, fourteen years later, were taken at the edge of the field too, disregarded and disavowed by a careless driver who was less desirous of the presence of sunflowers as he was of chasing a different intoxicating high.

Sunflowers were the bookends of her life. The first sunflower of the season is always for her.

A month after the flower appears, Dolores carries shears into the field, walking this time into a EKPHRASIS 2022 | 21

sea of full-grown yellow blooms. In the bright summer sun the flowers are all nearly identical in their stunning upturned faces. But Dolores has eyes only for the one she tied the ribbon on weeks ago, which she cuts at its base and carries back with her into the kitchen.

She will venture into the field again tomorrow to gather more flowers – five more, one for every year since the accident – but today one is enough.

Placing the sunflower in a clear glass vase, Dolores steps back and looks outside, running the white ribbon absentmindedly between her fingers. She watches for this moment every year: when all the sunflowers have bloomed to maturity and stop the process of heliotropism, the natural circadian cycle of a sunflower’s life when it follows the sun as it matures, and finally stands on its own, forever facing east.

Dolores’s kitchen window faces east too, and in late summer, after the sunflowers blossom, all she can see of them is their green crowns supporting their yellow-tipped backs. The gradual end of the flowers’ heliocentric ritual is a time of bittersweetness, as she knows they will no longer turn from the east to face her; the sunflowers will no longer greet her with their bright, eager faces.

She accepts the passing of the season, reluctant though she is to say goodbye.

Inside the house, the solitary sunflower stands now on a table near the window, on which Dolores solemnly places the white hair ribbon.

The sun setting through the window next to her has painted the flowers outside a warm pink.

Dolores walks across to the hallway facing her bedroom and turns off the lights, leaving only the ambient pink glow reaching into the shadows of the dark kitchen.

She turns around one last time before crossing the threshold. “Goodnight, my girl,” she whispers to the sunflower.

22 | EKPHRASIS 2022

That night Dolores dreams of her childhood dog happily chasing its tail, while beyond her doorframe the sunflower stands tall and proud, its outstretched petals facing west, toward the sunset of its life. u

Inspired by Gossamer

by George Bodine

Larry Klingman

Gossamer

We met on a soon to be lovers star-filled night.

Our bodies tingled like the taste of a glorious precious champagne at first sight.

We embraced and soon swooned in each other’s waiting arms.

Bodies dimly yet warmly lit by the setting sun.

We relished each other’s svelte bodies in glorious fun.

I will dress in red seductively lie on the bed listening to an overwhelming romantic sonata but you may not touch.

You may not touch until you renounce what you have done to me.

Inequality.

I who was your Aphrodite am now your Lysistrata. u

You adored me in red and I adored you in bed.

The physical helpless attraction grew into respectful promises to love, honor, and support one another’s dreams as equals.

And we respected each other’s vow until now.

EKPHRASIS 2022 | 23

Inspired by Sing Me a Slow Song

by Dottie Leatherwood

Ila Ladrow (youth – age 11)

Turtle Song

Night coming, Turtles being carried by the tide, the sunset calling, the sunrise is awaiting The call feels salty. Brave Shells u

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Inspired by King of the Wild Things

by Ana Rose Bain

Wendy Lind

to my wildest, to my son

What is it you will do, with this wildness in you?

All that you started with, all that is true?

As you chose who you are and what it is you will do, beware that the gilded and golden are a valued misconstrue.

So too are the entitlements, the righteousness, the polite untruths, it will be these that lead to the ultimate loss – of you.

Instead, honor that what has been, is, and will always be, the truth in laws not made by men, but by the free.

Look to the untamed, the savage, the unbroken and askew, these are the few that will teach you what is you.

Eyes rimmed with white, in chase or flight, they are driven by simple wildness, a continuation of each dawn, until their final light.

Their battles earn adaptations for the next born, often between symbiotic foes, not for what is due, but for needs well worn.

Forever let their wildness ebb and flow through you.

Reconstruct it. Go forward. Build a kindness and truth,

Use all that wildness to be all the good that is woven through you.

u

EKPHRASIS 2022 | 25

Inspired by Cold Road by Stan Rogers

Nancie McCormish

Hidebound

“Not stopping this time?”

“Nope.”

Sarge short steps on the slippery slope, weighing another winter sliding in.

“Cold hands, cold heart?”

“Lookin fer my gloves, nothin’ more.”

Cold sun pierces the fleeing storm, teasing its grey tail.

“Thought you was aiming to fix that cross fence this year?”

The little claybank mare leads, remembering, but pretending not to.

Feels the change approaching overhead.

“Nothin’ to keep away now. Thought you knew to mind yer own worries. Fresh hell…”

“Yea? Well that gift graced me with life, or do you mean to misremember that, too?”

Both horses stall, breathing stilled.

The mare stares at pepperdot rabbit scat underfoot, expecting an explosion.

“I ain’t forgot, boy. Just wish-to, most days.”

The mare exhales a smallish, warm cloud, watches it follow the hawk.

“Then why’re you ridin’ her mare, and give me Sarge?”

The grey’s ears flip back, radaring the rising storm, but he doesn’t adjust course.

“Sarge will mind after you. He’s proved out. You ain’t.”

The horses eye each other sideways.

Wisps of wind gently ruffle tracks and tails.

“Father, I’m grown! Look at me, willya?”

“This ain’t just my worry. We’ll both be missing her, probly forever, right enough.”

The old man turns away and spits, loading before firing again.

“Cain’t miss what never belonged to ya, son.

Grace wuz always just a gift.”

“No need. Face that launched a thousand buffalo chips, right? She learn you that from them damn books, too?”

Soft swoosh of snow under hooves, muffled by a rising tailwind. Overhead a hungry hawk circles the horsemen, sizes them up, vanishes downwind.

Howl of tailwind cuts the space between them as a blue-sky eye clears the clouds for just a blink.

Winter bellies closer in.

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“It’s SHIPS dad. It’s about a Greek woman’s love story, not some handlebarred old heartsick cowboy!”

Both horses lift their heads, awaiting orders to flee: together or apart this time?

The old man spits again downwind, marks its force.

“Only Greeks I seen are sheepeaters. No selfrespecting stockman would live on an island.”

Never taking to bitter, the son samples it straight, changes tack.

Sarge squares himself under the saddle, steadies them both.

“Father, it’s history — thousands of years old.

We learn it so’s not to make the same mistakes again.”

“No more mistakes? Like loosing as many sheep as stars in the sky in cow country? Or stealin’ an honest man’s betrothed wife and child? Sorriest old stories known to man-kind!”

Sarge swings his head and gently lips the mare’s cheek.

Both knew her tears, but Nature obliges horses to hold all human secrets silent.

“Father, she always loved you best, even you know that much.”

The old man sniffs, eyes the empty belltower, strikes.

“I re-call more’n you’ll ever get a loop over!

You… always wantin’ too close to a fire. Well I ain’t one for borryin’ troubles. Boy, here’s some true his-story for you: hot promises take ya down damn cold roads.”

While their scrap hangs fire a boldening breeze fingers the icy windowpanes, escapes with a rising, feminine-like lilt. All four face it, eyes upwards, breath stilled.

From long habit, the old man’s cold-numbed hand hovers atop his rifle, poised to pull it.

The unearthly sound wafts away, leaves him gutted, blinking away stillborn tears. He can’t face his son straight on but fires again.

“But I promised her…”

“You never did learn manners, damn if I know how she taught you enythin’. Blue Boy, I said I ain’t agoin’ in there. Meant it.”

This cruel slow twist – conjuring their favorite nursery song “Little Boy Blue” – centers and digs deep. The grown boy swallows, chokes.

From the schoolhouse window bursts a different song. Strident, longer, a downward plunging dirge-like wail, shedding unshakeable sadness.

“Fresh hell! What’s that?”

“Told ya before you’re on a cold trail, boy. She’s gone.”

Both horses turn away silent downwind, grimlipped.

The son hesitates, then casts a line.

“Jest the winter wind, Father, wallowing down.

Taste the bitter in it? Best get on out ahead of it.

I’ll follow you.” u

“Her schoolhouse still stands right there! She said I was born there, or don’t you recollect?

Just afore Christmas. She once’t said she never saw such smiles from you, even trapped in that storm and all, for days. Like Jesus in the manger, she said, only with a potbelly stove you kept a’fired. Let’s go inside. Like grown men. Pay our respects.”

EKPHRASIS 2022 | 27

Inspire by After the Storm

by Nancy Howe

Dagny McKinley

After the Storm

The clouds gathered as heavy as life before an early June storm broke. Imperfect snowflakes landed on tree limbs and bushes, weighing them down. In the crook of a tree, two sparrows nestled together singing a dirge. A nest built with grasses, twigs, feathers and string, sat empty below them.

The sparrows’ call, or cry, attracted others. The boy sat under a tree watching them, unaware of the cold or the snow. Other sparrows flew close, hovered then flew off. The boy could sit still no longer. He ran at the tree screaming, “Go on, get out of here. Go away!” Arms wrap around him, hold him tight until he begins to cry.

The neighbor girl sank with him to the ground, holding him until he stopped crying. His face was red and puffy. He rubbed his eyes, not wanting to see. She led him back to the shelter of the tree where they sat down. She put her hand in his. A sparrow flew close, hovered, then flew off.

“I hate him.”

“Again?”

“Their baby fell out of the nest yesterday and broke her wing. She was still alive so small, her heart beating so fast, so scared. I made her a bed of tissues and dug up some worms and cut them up for her. I don’t even know what they eat.

When my dad got home he said she didn’t have a chance, that I was torturing her by keeping her alive. He crushed her. She made the softest sound right before... I couldn’t breathe. I can’t 28 | EKPHRASIS 2022

breathe Her bones crunched. He threw her in the garbage. I hate him so much.”

The girl put her hand on the boy’s chest. His heart was beating fast.

“Those sparrows sat in the tree all night chirping.”

“Have you been out here all night?”

“No one notices. The other birds want to help but they can’t. They hover but never land.”

The girl gets up and walks over to the tree where the sparrows were. She shimmies up, carefully takes the nest, before returning to the boy where she presents him with the empty nest.

“What do I want that for?”

“It’s a nest. Put something special in it. Something you want to grow.”

The boy pulled a blue thread from the nest. The thread was from an art project he never finished.

The clouds began to brighten. The boy found himself shivering. “I don’t know what to put in it.”

The girl took the string and shaped it into a heart in the middle of the nest.

The two sparrows circled the tree, saw the nest gone, and flew off again together.

“One day we will grow up and we can go wherever we want.”

In the distance, the sun broke through the clouds.

The world turned gold where it landed.

The boy held the nest to his heart. He thought he could feel something warm inside. Something he had always been afraid to feel before. u

Inspired by Balancing Act

by Richard Boyer

Cesare Rosati

Olympic Dream

George reached for the phone but hesitated to make the call. He grabbed his coffee cup instead.

Then he rose and walked to his office windowsill.

It was full of framed photographs of better times.

He took a sip of coffee and then ran a finger along the top of one of the frames. It contained his marriage photo. His wife Karen had been, and still was, a striking woman. The two of them had grown up on the same street in Cleveland, OH; attended the same high school; and had married two weeks after graduating.

Next, he lifted the framed picture of their honeymoon in Hawaii. The skimpy bikini she was wearing still had the same effect on him.

With that thought in mind, he didn’t hear the door to his office open and was startled when he heard his assistant, William, say, “Mr. Fishman’s secretary is on the line. She said he wants to know if you can make tonight’s dinner party at his home. He also told her to remind you that the corporate president will be there.”

George turned to face him and said, “Yes. Tell her I plan to be there.”

William left and he returned to his desk, sat, and made his call. It rang many times before it was answered.

“Turner residence,” answered the pleasant female voice. “Who’s calling?”

“Gail, it’s me,” he said. “I’ve got an important meeting tonight. I really can’t miss it. Can you cover for me?”

A long pause ensued before she finally said, “OK, but no later than ten o’clock.”

“That’s fine. Thank you so much. How is she doing today?”

“It’s been a wonderful day. She spent the morning telling me all about the neighborhood where she grew up. Her memories are so vivid, I could picture myself there. Then, so far this afternoon we’ve been watching Lucy and Desi reruns on TV. She had a couple minor episodes where she rose from the couch, confused as to where she was and who I was, but they passed quickly and we’re now back to the Lucy show.

Will you be stopping by before your meeting?”

“No. I keep an extra suit here at the office. I’ll see you later.”

After replacing the handset, he rose and walked out of his office. William was sitting at his desk.

“Bill,” he said, “Have you finished compiling the sales figures for this quarter?”

“Yes. I’ve got them right here,” he said, holding up a file folder.

“Great. Thanks. I’m sure President Cantor will ask about it at tonight’s dinner.”

EKPHRASIS 2022 | 29

----Fishman’s home was only a mile from his, so George knew he could make it home before ten o’clock. Dinner was served at seven, and by eight, George was being grilled about the quarterly sales figures. Fortunately, he was prepared. He had just finished his report when his cell rang. He checked, saw who it was and excused himself to answer it.

“She’s gone! She’s gone!” shouted Gail. “I was only gone for a few minutes to use the toilet and when I got back to the living room, she wasn’t on the sofa watching TV. I’ve searched the house and the yard. She’s not here. Oh God! She’s not here.”

“I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

It was less than ten minutes when George walked into his house. Gail was distraught. All she could say was “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I was only gone a few minutes, and she was so engrossed in the Lucy show, I…” “OK. OK. Take it easy. She couldn’t have gone far. So she was sitting on the sofa watching TV…” “Yes. Lucy and Desi were planning a trip to the Olympics, and…”

“The Olympics?” said George.

“Yes. They…”

“Never mind. I think I know where she went.

Let’s go!”

“Where?”

“The old rail yard.”

They ran the two blocks to the abandoned rail yard and there she was, balancing on one of the rails.

“How did you know?” asked Gail.

“She always dreamed of competing as a gymnast at the Olympics,” he replied, as tears began flowing down his cheeks. “We used to come here as kids. She’d stand on one of the rails and pretend she was on the balance beam.”

“Come on,” said Gail. “Let’s take her home.”

“No,” said George, between sobs, “Not yet. Let her have her moment.” u

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Inspired by Incoming Tide, Laguna Beach by Calvin Liang

Rusty Rose

Spits and foams, now alive Roiling on to the sandy shore Released, it ebbs away u

EKPHRASIS 2022 | 31

Inspired by Family Farm

by Carolyn Lindsey

Barbara Sparks

Lives in the Balance Dust swirls across the dirt compound and decaying adobe buildings of the family farm. Joe’s horses amble the parched yard. The morning sun heats up this southwest border town.

You sure this is all right to be walking through Joe’s farm? She asked.

Oh yeah, Joe doesn’t mind. How else we going to get where we’re going. Ed, a Nogales resident, replied.

We walked past the horse corral, odd pieces of discarded equipment, a rusted car. A handful of cattle corralled in a dirt lot looked forlorn and forgotten.

As we passed the wire fenced lot a white cow, with what looked like a black shawl over her shoulders, dropped a calf. Spellbound, we halted, grew silent; we watched the beginning of a life.

Oh, wow! I’ve never seen a birth out in a feed lot like this. She exclaimed.

I’m afraid those cows don’t get much attention.

They always look so destitute. That cow did a good job. Faith, Ed’s wife, said.

The newborn, all spindly legged, struggled to get a footing. She flopped from one side to another, each leg independent, uncoordinated until synchronized into a pattern of stability to 32 | EKPHRASIS 2022

hoist herself up. She latched on to her lifeline of support, gulping deeply with each swallow. She will survive, it’s time to move on.

Our group crosses the yard into a rambling grove of mesquite and juniper sidestepping rocks, cowpies, ruts of standing water, plastic water bottles.

A two-track headed out through the farmland into open fields of rocks and catclaw. Ed and Faith lead us through the farm to a view of the fence that divides the border towns of Nogales, in Arizona and Nogales, Sonora in Mexico.

An abandoned backpack lies under a juniper, further along a used baby diaper and filthy blanket tossed off the road. More plastic water bottles. People shed what they no longer need or can carry. Chatter about the newborn calf halted.

In the distance we begin to see what we came to see. An undulating brown steel fence flows like a gigantic snake through the hills to the horizon.

Its massive shadow spreads across the dirt road running parallel to the border fence.

The shocking presence it has, like a wound exposed, bled dry; its hardness, its massiveness, 20-foot-plus-hight intruding on the landscape. A double row of rolled razor wire secured to the top of the entire fence line. This area is marked E15.

Did they have to put up two rows of razor wire?

One wasn’t enough?

People will throw carpets over the top to slide down from Mexico into the U.S. That’s why the second row. Another deterrent. Remember?

We saw five rows of that damn wire in Nogales neighborhoods, Ed stated.

She remembers the couple in Nogales talking through the fence. A young woman with a baby stroller, an elderly woman on the other side; the two holding hands.

or shirt fabric. One quilt lists the ages, causes of death, of unknown skeletal remains. Other quilts display beautiful scenes of mountains constructed with found blankets, baby clothes, hats, shoes, rosaries. It’s a painful somber exhibit.

Migrants bet their lives for a chance to begin anew, searching for the lifeline of support. While the newborn calf found hers, many migrants are not so fortunate. u

Faith points to a tall white tower looming overhead with surveillance equipment. A portable generator with directional lights stands alert. Two uniformed men in a parked white Ford truck with the easily recognized green emblem of the Border Patrol. One scowls at us, the other waves so Ed waves back.

She wanders over to a slender metal obelisk.

What is this?

Ed told her she might as well have a good look.

It’s a camera and it’s watching you! They were installed along the border after the Mexican American war. Over 200 if I remember right.

Only later did she learn drug cartels utilize surveillance drones to track packages and use underground tunnels for drug runners. She finally understood why Ed accepted, or at least tolerated, the Border patrol.

The small group walks along the fence stopping to peer through giant bars into Mexico. Among the cacti, mesquite and juniper discarded water bottles, clothes, empty food containers of all sorts litter the ground; the only remnants of people in transition hoping for a new life.

A quilt exhibit constructed with objects found along the Tucson border sector documents travelers who didn’t make it. The names of migrant deaths are printed on pieces of denim EKPHRASIS 2022 | 33

Inspired by Rising Sun on Isis Temple

by Clifford V. Barnes

Ethan Summers (youth – age 11)

Grand Canyon The sun shines on the endless peaks, and the valleys that seem to have no floors that I have dreamed about are here.

If only, I was a little lower on the rock face below me, I would see the river throwing itself against the canyon walls, the rafters screaming as the current maneuvers them around the canyon at high speeds.

Someday, I’ll raft those waters too.

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u

Inspired by Beach Beauty

by Camille Przedwodek

Jennifer Summers

Aquinnah

Everyday, I walk the beach, combing it for sea glass, collecting shells and smooth colorful stones.

I swim in the sea, and sunbathe under the clay cliffs, building rock sculptures in the sand.

I don’t have cell phone service up-island.

I finally have time to read.

Sun-kissed, salty hair, blowing in the breeze.

u

EKPHRASIS 2022 | 35

Inspired by Incoming Tide, Laguna Beach by Calvin Liang

Marian Tolles

Remembering Laguna

It’s good sometimes to walk along this old familiar shore, our kingdom in those halcyon days when we were kings and queens of summer.

Memories come flooding back – Nights lit by campfires, hearts with laughter.

Ukuleles strumming, we knew all the songs.

First loves, ephemeral as sandcastles washing away on rogue waves, moonlight skipping on the surface of the sea.

Have I reached the rocky point so soon?

I must hurry here, waste no more time in idle dreams, for I remember well that once the tide comes in you can’t get back again. u

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Inspired by Balancing Act

by Richard Boyer

Melissa VanArsdale

Track to Justice

A young woman walks the tracks.

Balancing between justice and injustice.

She’s caught off guard when there’s a sudden switch in the line that divides the track into two.

Almost stumbling, she catches herself, but ends up on the track of injustice.

A rusted track of corruption and decay.

A track that leads to a dark past.

Her rights are stripped.

She continues down the path.

Remembering King’s words “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”

She embraces this thought.

Soon she couples with other women facing the same plight when they bump into one another, Eventually becoming a locomotive force.

The women advance and sound off warnings as they look for the switch that connects the track to lead them back to the track of justice.

A parallel track of equality.

u

EKPHRASIS 2022 | 37

Inspired by Vintage MG Dash

by Bobbie Crews Thurston

Joella West

An Old Love Story

She is for sale for $500. I have that. I have worked for a long time. Not babysitting. Real jobs that pay real money – $2.00/hour. I have saved it all.

She has been vetted by my “gentleman friend” who among many other skills, is a mechanic.

He has found her frame to be termite-free and she is mechanically sound, although the chrome shows some rust, which I will need to polish out.

Electrical system by Lucas, famous among car buffs as the Prince of Darkness, but otherwise she “runs well – if you accept a top speed of 55 mph, if you can master using the manual choke, if you can shift at the appropriate rpm and without stripping the gears, if you can forgive the idiosyncrasies of the single wiper blade and its tendency to be blown entirely off the windshield in a strong wind. If you accept the absence of amenities: no radio, no courtesy light. No gas gauge, just an Idiot Light that only comes on when even the fumes are gone. There is a cigarette lighter but no ashtray. The soft top and slip-in side curtains are useful for keeping out some but by no means all of the rain. She also has a tonneau cover, but this is the Monterey Peninsula, and I am not British, so generally I will keep the top up and put on the heater, which has two positions—too hot and too cold. My gentleman friend will teach me to drive. I will learn all about the friction point and double clutching, and the etiquette of waving at other MGTD’s and TF’s but never at any newer model. He will show me every shortcut from Carmel to Cannery Row, and how 38 | EKPHRASIS 2022

to drive in fog so thick that in order to stay on the road it is necessary to open the driver’s door to find and follow the center line. I will wreck the car and he will rebuild her from the ground up.

And when it is time for me to head East to college and a future that doesn’t include him or the place where I grew up, I will sell her to a friend and recover my $500 investment. I will never see her again. But after all these years, I still imagine that she is somewhere, treasured by someone at immense cost and inconvenience. Perhaps she has even posed for this painting. u

EKPHRASIS 2022 | 39

In loving memory of

Susan deWardt who inspired us all

The word ekphrasis, or ecphrasis, comes from the Greek for the description

of a work of art produced as a rhetorical exercise, often used in the adjectival form ekphrastic.

It is a vivid, often dramatic, verbal description of a visual work of art, either real or imagined.

Ekphrasis is produced annually by the Steamboat Art Museum, 807 Lincoln Ave., Steamboat Springs, CO 80487.

No portion of the contents may be reproduced in any manner without the written permission of the publisher.

All rights reserved.

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