Day 23 NaPoWriMo The prompt said:
” Today, I challenge you to write an ekphrastic poem — that is, a poem that responds to or is otherwise inspired by a work of art. Probably the most famous ekphrastic poem in English is Keats’ Ode on a Grecian Urn, but there is no lack of modern ekphrastic work. Take Auden’s Musee de Beaux Arts or Robert Lowell’s For the Union Dead. So go forth and find a painting, sculpture, photograph, or even a piece of music, and use it to inform your poem for today. Art creates art — it’s so efficient!”

I used a favourite photo I took a couple of years ago at a writing retreat at Bridgewater, a place for artists and writers about two hours from home.

Where Have All the Poets Gone?

A Contemplation of Poets

On hot summer days even the sun
floats on the river for relief
hard bright light fading trees
to a blur that only remembers soft green.

Shade offers daylilies reprieve
from heat, yet their petals
curl and fade, prepare to fall.
Only the bright chairs

appear untouched by heat and fade
their colours brilliant even
in the shade. They wait. Poets
not seen but somewhere
near and always contemplating.

Carol A. Stephen
April 23, 2012

Carol A. Stephen

Today the prompt is to write a poem where everything is a particular colour or that colour predominates. Hope this is not too prosaic…

Layers of Saturation

The days close windows, shutter
sky in purple cloud, sending the sun
somewhere south and west.

When moon rises, she’s wrapped herself
in the purple midnight we call black,
yet purple even so.

Light from white stars filters
the line of purple through layers of night,
layers of amaranth, their haloes shimmer violet

rain descending, sending a mist
of red-blue tears. At sunrise,
beneath the trees, purple crocuses.

crocuses (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Carol A. Stephen
April 7, 2012