Ekphrastic Challenge 7

The winning poem and a selection chosen by editor and judge, Emily Tee

“The Flight of Rain” by Cindy Rinne

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What a variety of forms we received for this challenge - sonnets, monoku, haiku, brevities, free verse and even a mirror poem!  Cindy Rinne's beautiful artwork was the inspiration for many fine poems, some narrative, others more impressionistic, from this challenge's participants.  The link to the artwork was strong with many picking up textural aspects and turning them into poetic imagery.  What a delight to read all the entries, and what a hard job to judge the contest! Thanks to everyone who entered, and congratulations to this month's winner Olivia McNeilis, and special mention too for the following poems (in no particular order): “Cailleach in Summer”, “A Woven Metamorphosis”, and “Long Absences”.

-Emily Tee, editor and judge of our Ekphrastic Challenges.

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Congratulations to Olivia McNeilis from the UK for her winning poem “After Eden”! A Wee Sparrow Poetry Press dragonfly notebook is winging its way to her.

After Eden 

It's a woman's work to take these scraps
and turn them into Eden.
Make mend and do.
It’s the kind of magic her mother
taught her in all the long summers
of childhood;
growing something from nothing.

Look as she paints trees
in flames of colour
and stitches rain row by row
and weaves nets wide
enough to catch glowing stars 
and let the birds escape through.
Given time, she’ll think of everything.

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Walk

the land’s fabric
torn and stained
my feet stitch it back together
as best they can
 
John Lanyon
UK

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The Memory Board Under Her Bed

She filled her cup with many things  
until it overflowed                             
onto a board of memories                              
some young, some very old.                          
She filled it with rainy days               
full of made-up games                                   
laughing, hiding, dressing up             
staging shadow plays.                        
She filled it with autumn days                       
piling leaves to reach the sky                         
then scrunching them inside a book  
one page at a time.                             
She filled it full of feathers found      
and stars plucked from the night        
and doily hair on little heads              
as grandkids improvised                     
and she filled it with lavender            
her very favourite scent                     
to dab upon her memories                  
as she took her final breath.   
 
Anna Dean
Australia            

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blue strawbed

underneath
my life
a tapestry
of memories
stitched together
with sadness
that wraps
my heart
blue wings
of a moth

Marc Brimble
Spain

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Time marks

Water powers, out the kitchen, to where
my Greek-blue garden set 
somehow forgotten. 
The fig trees wait, fearful of
a twilight night. Let us not reject the feathers 
of a starling, let us leave the water 
to its scandalous turn; a flood of 
murder thoughts deep down my hemispheres. 
It is all I have, for you. For now, 
nothing real, nothing much me. 
The heart confronts, sometimes morning, conscience 
will brew no builder’s tea. 
I put the primrose oil on the window sill, a timemark 
of sage. Today, a cold-feet query: what might be 
the right time to bury persistence, 
to stitch leaves and lace — 
and say hello?

Kate Copeland
England

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tea in the moonlight -
autumn drizzle feeds
the herb garden 

Katherine E Winnick 
Brighton, UK 

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Autumn Leaves
 
Pathetic fallacy would usually dictate the heat
Of summer days the setting fit for youthful love,
But with you, it always felt just right we’d meet
When swollen darkening clouds hung low above,
And roofed the busy city on a rainy autumn day.
The friends who introduced us were swiftly left behind,
As we fell hard, and made our own coupled way
In metaphysical belief that each, the other defined.
 
But seasons changed, and turned too quick,
And life, delicate as lace, could not endure the winter blast
Of illness that stole your youth, made you so sick,
And at the end, like the dying leaves that fall so fast
On a wind whipped day, my autumn love, you left,
And I alone remain with patchwork memories, bereft.

Andrew Urquhart
Scotland

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Autumn falling rain leaves watermarked...

Grace De Sousa
Québec, Canada 

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A Woven Metamorphosis 

Look closer at the tapestry of vessels, 
Unravel the stills of seasonal change; 
Feathers molting, leaves turning, brooding clouds opening. 
Delicate vine tendons that creep between the symmetrical lines. 
The bottles are labeled, chronicled, and curated for our eyes, and
Fresh coloured boxes contrast the cobwebbed lace.
But there is a building, present desire to touch, 
to unravel, unweave, and unpick. 
To set back in motion what has been embroidered stuck,
to open the bottles and peer into the bowl. 
To caress the feathers and tend to the bird. 
To experience the cold rain and hear the thunder building,
But to no more relief than what is sewn.
A woven metamorphosis. 

Erin Kelly
Scotland

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Long Absences

How to sew up the fabric of a life?  This was all that was left:
the best silverware polished to the pewter,
yellowed lace draped useless on an arm,
newspaper clippings from the war,  your war,
stacks of old address books.

Imagine that, we say, hoarding years of death,
chalking them off one by one,  that’s all the Rs,

all those telephone lines ringing  out  out  out.

You didn’t tune the piano. The top notes always rang flat.
Never a perfect octave, the scale not quite concluding,
the tonic failing to resurface at the summit.

You never married again, after he died  couldn’t I think,
left your nails  the colour of flesh.

You taught me the waltz and two step
but it wasn’t your feet that danced with the thrust of bass
in the belly  the shuddering breath of another on your lips
a swim of chemicals
foxtrotting through the nervous system.

How I lost you then and how I find you now
in the middle of a name,  in the crooked bend of a hand.

E.M. Davis
UK

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Weatherwise

At the back of my great-aunt's house was
A downstairs room always kept locked...
Curious, I'd try to peer in from the garden, 
Through French doors, internally curtained.

After she died, I was let by mum into those
Forbidden spaces - it was like breaking a taboo.
She had stayed single - customarily called a 'spinster',
Spinning yarns for incredulous posterity, as distinct from 
Old wives' tales. She showed patchy seasons interlacing:

A course from vernal green to autumnal russet
Journeyed the tree, yet still remaining rooted;
Each leaf a witness to an individual colour,
Some even Begonian blue. While quilts were sewn, 
Seeds were sown (and in a bowl on the windowsill,
Some had remained), yielding a harvest of 
Aromatic herbs to cluster perfume bottles. 
Rain, when it came, poured in moderate showers.

No more such days, as into one perpetual intemperance
Melts heat, flows wet, blows wind in all-time highs, this 
World out of bounds, off limits; and now eternally curtained.

Alison Sesi
Germany

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Hanging by a Thread
 
This ramshackle world is
hanging by a thread the
old woman said while stitching
on into the night.
 
Bowing her head as if in prayer
under a bowl of stars
while the rain fell she
held her needle tight.
 
Up and through the thick quiet
warmth resting upon her knees
waiting for the dawn
pulling thread she stitches on.
 
Her eyes of clouded glass alone
through the petals of years
she stitches our unpredictable world
creating a patchwork of hope.

Katharine Davis
USA

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The Tapestry Of Life 

Oh, how inspired, life would be 
Meeting each season, like the tree
Releasing bottled up hurt, pain 
Like the clouds allow the rain 
Seeking stars, from within the night 
On plumes of hope, taking flight 
Weaving stories, like tracks of lace
No sense of hurry, no sense of haste 
For, every piece that has been known 
Becomes the tapestry we have sewn

Helen Rose 

-

As I inhale the charcoal clouds,
Watching them squeeze through the leaves,
Day break overcrowds,
The threads between us as we breathe,
Harmony tightens our vows,
It fixes our honour,
It allows my personality of colours,
To fray at the collar,
A seamstress´ story,
Must be made of many dreams,
A tapestry of glory,
Bursting at the seams,
But what is life if not a fabric pastiche,
With differences in common,
And a popularity for peace. 

Chloe Hazel 
UK

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Grandmother Was a Granny Woman*
 
I ran my hand gently over the faded fabric. This old quilt had been
my grandmother's and her grandmother's before her.
Only a little frayed at the edges, it still rests on the bed where it
had covered the frail body of the strongest woman I had ever known.
 
Pieced together with scraps of fabric, like broken bits forged
into a stained-glass window, it tells a story-
the ways of the mountains; how the Earth
is ruled by the moon and stars, how the sun shines,
the rain falls and seasons turn the weeping willow green
and the maples crimson.
 
These granny women had vision.
They were gifted with power from the creator-
with knowledge of grasses and herbs of the fields
and forest for food and medicine. They had sight as
clear as the fresh water from the mountain springs,
but they knew time flows past faster than the river runs, and
the best we could hope for is a little bit of magic and a lot of grace.

Janice Mathis
USA

*Historically, the healers and medicine women of southern Appalachia were often called Granny Women.

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Stitches of Time Going By

Have you ever seen something make
perfect sense
where there shouldn’t be any,
where the sky moves
above autumn leaves and peacock wings
where your eyes see possibly absinthe
complete with
silent loop on loop of bobbin lace
with bottles and bowls
and seasonal glimpses of a year
and overlaps of beauty,
of no rules
of pieces that create another time and place?
Thank you sky for being truly moving
of the fabric of me
addressed in one piece.

Donna Best
Australia

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Cailleach in Summer
 
Happed in her cocoon quilt of dreams,
Cailleach spins: her incantations meld
peacock feathers, five stars of summer.
A net, set to trap the sun,
enmesh the moon;
blow cobwebs across noctilucent skies
turn leaves ombre, orange, then die:
but not yet.  Drowsy with hibernation
she drops tinctures in her mortar of midnight-
three jewels: mugwort, yarrow, rue;
add lavender for dream insight.
A shot rings out: she calls it:
patched feathers fly, as cold, Autumn approaches.
Cailleach stirs, murmuring, in rough dreamt pleasure.

Ruth Reid
UK 

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juxtaposing threads 
 
needlework speaks of home   peace   comfort  
fire places   slippers   books   newspapers  
shared stories over tea   chocolates  
contemplation   children tucked under cosy
quilts   aprons hanging from rocking chairs  
pets nearby
 
it indulges in comforting thoughts of home-
comings   while glancing through window panes  
as rain washes the outside world   nourishing
flower beds   vegetables   dripping from chook
pens and swings   while magpies warble
amongst fallen awnings
 
sometimes galoshes are seen under umbrellas 
then sandals   skipping ropes   waving postmen  
departing busses   mothers with prams   dogs
on leads   sun sets before stars hide behind
curtains         small glimpses   while cutting
threads   choosing colours

Jean Bohuslav
Australia

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Pulling threads

When we first met in the spring
she threaded the needle pulled
the first stitch of the tapestry, then
She said “When the last stitch is pulled
it will be my time to leave”
  
we walked hand in hand
Until leaves drop silently to the earth
in the evenings we talked of
this and that as her fingers added stitches
trees and bottles adding beauty to the canvas
 
As night time came with music playing
shared music we liked as she wove some more.
the tapestry grew, and the nights would
end in tangles of legs words spoken
things said, without a sound.
 
One day I arrived when the trees were
nearly bare their leaves all spread
on the ground, the door was opened.
she kissed my cheek saying
“The last thread is pulled, I've got to go” and left

Chris Barras
UK

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Julia Vaughan
Australia

Adele Evershed
USA

Here´s Emily Tee´s wonderful poem -

How to make a bird

First, take the nourishment of rain.
Distill until you have the essential essence of it,
all the wet magic of the sky.
Capture it in a bottle with a stout cork stopper.
Use sparingly - this life force is powerful.
Gather the droplets in your favourite cup,
one made of brittle-strong china, like a heart.
It will give strength to tiny bones that let wings fly.
Next, look to the trees.  They will be not just a home,
the branches and boughs where your bird will nestle, rest.
The leaves are catalysts - they will inspire feathers.
Look just how they sit, how they fit together,
the lace tracery of their veins, their glow.
Sketch your bird in natural colour inks: greens,
golds, bronzes and browns. Speckle if desired.
Let them rustle, bring in russet if you must.
Take all of the wood's wisdom, the forest lore,
turn it into a poem, and use the rhythm of the words.
Finally, translate that into birdsong and wing flap.

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Thank you so much to all the poets who submitted. We will be opening submissions for our 8th Ekphrastic Challenge soon...

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A reminder that submissions for our monthly Wee Sparrow Haiku Nook edited by Marc Brimble are open until the 15th. You can read the full guidelines on our website here.

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Call for Anthology Proposals

We have published four themed paperback anthologies so far, each supporting a different charity. As we are a varied and international creative community, we´d like to give you the chance to edit and curate our fifth anthology.

Do you have an idea for a theme and title? Is there a particular charity you would like to support? Do you have any previous editing and/or publishing experience? (If not, no worries. We also welcome newbies.) Please email a brief proposal to theweesparrowpoetrypress@gmail.com.

The post of anthology editor/curator is unpaid and would involve the following tasks -

-receiving and selecting submissions 
-corresponding with poets
-editing and proofreading
-anthology design
-promotion of the final anthology

This would be a supported role working alongside other members of The Wee Sparrow Poetry Press team.

Deadline for proposals is 30th November 2024. Current scheduling of our fifth anthology would be submissions to open early 2025 with a view to publishing mid-2025. This timing is flexible.

Get your thinking hats on!

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Cheerio for now!

Stay well and stay creative.

Claire

Wee editor sparrow watercolour by Colin Thom