Still Life

(there is some irony here)

Hello friends! Yes, I have moved! You are now visiting my new site at Substack, where I have joined a beautiful community of writers and friends. Substack has invited me in to an inspirational library of writing and art. For you, this change might simply be visual. I will continue sharing my own poetry with you in hopes that you will be provoked or encouraged in some way. I am not sure where this change will lead, but I believe the connection to this community will bless us both.

In honor of change, today I share a poem recently published in The Clayjar Review titled “Still Life” (ha ha). The current theme of Clayjar’s volume of poetry is “practice resurrection” and pondering this theme has enriched my Easter season. I pray that this poem may give you a visual and a space to consider one of my favorite psalms.

https://clayjar.review/issues/practice-resurrection/still-life

painting by Pieter Claesz

Still Life
Psalm 131

she paints a still life—

its bowl of golden apples 
waiting whole 

on time’s table, in flit 
and flicker of candle

flaming through the pane
of a dimmed window;

a round loaf risen
beneath the days broken 

beside a scarlet rose 
limp, woven;

and lone daisy, a vase’s grazing 
of death and life, wound; 

while at the table’s rim
two seashells sound

brushed thin with the sands
of soft shore 

and at its core, a pale skull,
the careful sockets

reminiscent of that gray 
Golgotha, what is ours. . . 

so she paints in stilled light
beneath the divine life

rising above shadows 
of the illumined table

of still beauty 

and quiet soul.