Yearning to Combine in Columbus

Saturday 11 March, I had the privilege of participating in an event called Call and Response: Intersections of Art and Poetry, hosted by the Ohio Poetry Association at Pennington Custom Art in Columbus, Ohio. I believe sixty poets wrote ekphrastic work for the gallery's current exhibition (which will be up through April for your viewing pleasure) and more than three dozen of us were able to be there and read our poems for the event.

The piece that inspired my poem is Call and Answer, a stoneware sculpture by Jim Bowling (seen above with my poem displayed near it). I wish I'd taken more photos of it from different angles, because each different perspective you view it from reveals something new and wondrous. If I had time, I would have liked to have written a whole series of poems about my experience of this piece.

Thanks to Ohio Beat Poet Laureate Sandra Feen for taking this photo of me reading.

And finally, here is my poem:

Yearning to Combine
after Call and Answer by Jim Bowling

So much felt
clear in my bones,
though I lacked eyes
to see and appeared
to be little more
than a detached
appendage
with a gaping mouth.

I wanted to take
your mouth and all
into mine and keep you
safe from heartache,
horror and more,
but the larger mouth
of Time loomed heavily,
waiting to swallow us both.