Art Inspires Art

This past week during our TOAG group I was given a gift, which was painted by Mallory Reece.  The intended theme of the painting suggests hope, and I love just staring at it, trying to find the hope in each brush stroke.  The painting also inspired me to write a poem using the same theme.  It's the first poem I've written in a while, so I much appreciated such an artful muse.  

(The Painting)

(The Poem)

Hope is a whisper barely overheard

Making lonely hearts sick

with all the things unseen,

deterred and deferred,

dug down deep in the dirt.

Hope is never seeded clean,

Sewn slipping in a blue black pitch,

Knitted with a crooked, crawling stitch.

Stirring up depths unknown,

Over-bearing, over-grown

till the harvest-sickles sheen.

Hope is the last leaf on the tree

as bending branches interweave

vine after vine, each with its own appalling plea-

softly sighing through a sermon-

slowly tortured, by a cross-splintered burden.

Hope is hidden in the canvas.

Proved true and fire tested,

Proved true and ever tempted.

Hope is paradox and contradiction

always here and always fleeing

always near and ever fading.

Hope are all the angels harkening

on holy harps like swords

singing straight their bloody melodies,

Like a hand on the cornerstone

Like holy palms facing all alone.

Hope is never found in the memory,

In all the fine print that we’ve ever done.

Hope is an east-west geography,

sacrificed willingly upon a morning sun.

Hope is a hell forged lovingly,

Fueled quite gracefully,

and torched so touchingly.