At least, that's the prompt this week. And a new vocabulary word for my nerdy friends to drop in conversation.

Ekphrasis (which has far too many consonants squished together like that) is poetry about a work of art. Mary Anne and I used to go down to the Cleveland Museum of Art and do this when we were in high school, so it's a bit weirdly nostalgic.

I wrote one for the prompt, which was to use a work by Rick Mobbs, and one on Starry Night, because I'm predictable and have always had a thing for it.



As in Waking

The dream unfurls in layers, as in waking:
dreamer first, then sky, then the ratio
overlaid with mathematical exactitude, cupping
all the rest in mother-of-pearl and rose.
“(a + b) / a = a / b” she whispers, in words
too full for prose, meaning: “In shell, nimbus,
or the the palm of the hand, there is yet a memory
of that cast-off hunger for perfection. Reach out,
and the dream will forgive you. Long for it,”
says the dreamer, “long to clasp the sun!”





Starry Night

The windows of God's house are narrow here,
preserving the dark sleep of the saints within.
Pious gold rings their heads. Martyrs' lives,
when lived, can set aflame the world, but no one reads
by light of gilded plaster—its illuminated purity
must wait for day. Out, and up: the night is aflame with halos,
enveloping for miles every tiny point of light. They are
only stars, only stars! Yet in reverent ecstasy,
even cypress yearns heavenward, a blaze
of shadow burning to touch the sky.