February 2019
While my three children were young, I wrote just enough poetry to give me an inkling that I might have an aptitude for it, but I wasn’t brave enough to throw my earning potential aside until my family was grown and I’d worked for a number of years. As time went on, I came to regret not having devoted myself to writing much earlier in life. The “now or never” decision came about 20 years ago—my late-in-life career—and the process of creating a poem still gives me enormous satisfaction. I’m gratified that my poetry is widely published in the small press and equally gratified by becoming part of a larger community of writers.
Little Painting with Yellow, 1914 ~ Wassily Kandinsky
A kaleidoscope of overlapping waves issuing
from a molten core: petals of an outrageously
overblown flower splashed with yellow? The golden
eye of a sun dispelling layers of storm clouds?
Mere abstraction? Perhaps. Critics cite impending war,
adumbrations of an apocalypse, yet yellows infuse
the spectrum of his palette, illuminating darkened borders
as if from this maelstrom of explosive bursts he would
hold out an essential optimism, hope. Or did his prescience
see beyond earthly destruction, a second sight piercing
the depths of the universe and its cataclysms—creation itself.
Has he not prefigured the galactic cycle of birth
and rebirth we can now capture with our telescopes,
images that bespeak of genesis, its surreal beauty?
A kaleidoscope of overlapping waves issuing
from a molten core: petals of an outrageously
overblown flower splashed with yellow? The golden
eye of a sun dispelling layers of storm clouds?
Mere abstraction? Perhaps. Critics cite impending war,
adumbrations of an apocalypse, yet yellows infuse
the spectrum of his palette, illuminating darkened borders
as if from this maelstrom of explosive bursts he would
hold out an essential optimism, hope. Or did his prescience
see beyond earthly destruction, a second sight piercing
the depths of the universe and its cataclysms—creation itself.
Has he not prefigured the galactic cycle of birth
and rebirth we can now capture with our telescopes,
images that bespeak of genesis, its surreal beauty?
© 2019 Linda M. Fischer
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