Here is Tera’s poem (the one I chose to respond to of the four she shared with me) along with my piece. In working on my piece, I allowed the imagery and emotional tone of the poem to stimulate my imagination.
A Walk With Sadness by Tera Freese
Sadness sits in my lap like a small child — Brown tears, hot plum breath.
Standing, I zip her up, safe inside my coat like an infant in a sling.
Look, I whisper — the white legs of birch, The lake’s many ice rafts rising and falling on her huge abdomen, The yellow globe of moon winding with the trail.
There, the cold ripples of ice resemble an elephant’s trunk, The slight thaw having dripped and froze again two massive wings growing from the steep silver cliff.
and — look — bright Venus Like a place you visited long ago and are waiting to return to.
I keep still — and – like a carpet rolling outward into shimmers of sky, like all of the sages reaching back through fields of time — Sadness unfolds and is gone.
silver minnow 