j.lewis Verse-Virtual 2017 January

January 2017

Working in a jail, providing healthcare to a difficult group of patients, requires something totally unrelated as a sanity balance. Photography and poetry provide that balance for me. To date I have published one book of poetry and photography “a clear day in october” and have a chapbook forthcoming from Praxis Magazine in early 2017.

Author’s Note: A fellow V-V poet stumbled across a number of my photographs that I had posted on Facebook and began commenting on them, using both his own poetic voice, and lines from other poets and books. I was so surprised and delighted by his comments that I took them all and incorporated them into a response poem.

the poetry of photography
for john stanizzi
whose comments on my photos left me speechless

i have him. he is hooked.
responds poetically to say
the delicacy of nature abounds
quietly. perfectly
within each colored frame

finds it difficult to grasp
that this is not a painting
though it uses nature's brushstrokes
background and foreground for man's ingenuity
for the lovely, rounded edges
of things keeping us afloat

samuel beckett comes to mind,
time passing indirectly
into the sheen and grace of fall

colors fade to black and white
a muted frame and suddenly
the need to read faulkner
though perhaps another time

for here is sunset against the shore
stillness against stillness
against stillness within stillness
water. sand. sky
one miraculous cycle
a ripple of monet
in the air
in the water

peer into the orange-hued softness
of a poppy so close it loses its identity
in lines. and shades. what light might feel like
if you could hold it

scan distant snow-robed peaks
majestic. reverence echoing
from cold white rocky boulders
...and yet...and yet....
no more grandiose than
the smallest insect
inside a flower
macro. micro. magical. incredible

are those frost's birches there
bending left and right?
metaphor for our spectacular,
complex, brief, brief lives

can you separate the sunrise, sunset
the years that have passed
since keats penned his ode to autumn
the swollen gourds, and later
flowers for the bees
who crawl down
down into another universe
equally spectacular

the psalmist tries to capture
this simple scene of water, earth, sky
teaches us that the voice of the Lord
the voice and the Word that made all these
is powerful. full of majesty
strength. mighty, mighty strength

breathe in the sea-laden air
whitman will tell you
it is not a perfume
no taste. odorless
and yet we are in love with it

but these are only photographs
just pictures
must they also be philosophy?
i don't know.
chiaroscuro is its own light
its own darkness

pray for the road home. eat the fish. be happy
stop to trace the fragile demarcations of solace
whisper your prayer into the breeze:
oh, to be able to move, to stand
with that kind of gentleness

Editor's Note: If this poem(s) moves you please consider writing to the author (email address above) to tell him or her. You might say what it is about the poem that moves you. Writing to the author is the beginning of community at Verse Virtual. It is very important. -FF