Poetry Painting Project: Day 24

ABOUT THE POETRY PAINTING PROJECT

We selected 30 poems (from the public domain) and each day for the next 30 days I will write a poem inspired by it, and Addie will paint a painting.

So, without further ado, let’s get to today’s painting and poem, inspired by Kahlil Gibran’s book, The Prophet.

To read this poem, click here (or scroll down near the bottom of the page)


ADDIE’S PAINTING

Beauty Is
By Addie Hirschten

MY POEM

SUCH BEAUTY IS THIS

Such beauty is this,
such mystery,
that upon my body you’ve planted
a walled garden of roses.

And there we dally
and laugh like arcadian children,
our legs variously crossed, curious, and uncomposed,
and time is a silken kite
on a pendulous summer wind
that knows no beginning or end.

Where are the watchtowers?
We have made them infirm
and have cracked their ancient stones
with vines of amorous glances.

My body is a canvas for your blossoms.
Your petals color for my skin,
perfume for my voice,
and to all whom I touch and speak
become drunk with their heady bouquet.

Such beauty is this,
such mystery,
that my soul is water and soil,

that upon my body you’ve planted
a walled garden of roses.


OUR INSPIRATION

from THE PROPHET
by Kahlil Gibran

Where shall you seek beauty, and how shall you find her unless she herself be your way and your guide?
And how shall you speak of her except she be the weaver of your speech?
The aggrieved and the injured say, “Beauty is kind and gentle.
Like a young mother half-shy of her own glory she walks among us.”
And the passionate say, “Nay, beauty is a thing of might and dread.
Like the tempest she shakes the earth beneath us and the sky above us.”
The tired and the weary say, “Beauty is of soft whisperings. She speaks in our spirit.
Her voice yields to our silences like a faint light that quivers in fear of the shadow.”
But the restless say, “We have heard her shouting among the mountains,
And with her cries came the sound of hoofs, and the beating of wings and the roaring of lions.”
At night the watchmen of the city say, “Beauty shall rise with the dawn from the east.”
And at noontide the toilers and the wayfarers say, “We have seen her leaning over the earth from the windows of the sunset.”


Notes:
Kahlil Gibran, 1883-1931. Born in the village of Bisharri in what is now northern Lebanon but was then Ottoman Syria.
Link to Biography: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/kahlil-gibran
Link to Poem: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/58585/58585-h/58585-h.htm


ABOUT THE POETRY PAINTING PROJECT

For the past couple of months I have been working on a huge new secret project with my painter, Addie Hirshten, of Studio Alchemy

We selected 30 poems (from the public domain) and each day for the next 30 days I will write a poem inspired by it, and Addie will paint a painting.

Expect an outpouring of creative energy! This is the sort of big project that artists live for … where we can say what we yearn to say.  Big picture stuff. Heart wrenching stuff. I feel so inspired by the poetry we are working with AND seeing Addie’s process as well. Expect daily surprises with our posts. Expect passion. Expect love. Expect life.

Check Out Addie’s Instagram Account: www.instagram.com/alchemy.of.art.addie.hirschten/

Check out Addie’s art studio — Studio Alchemy:
studioalchemy.art/

Life is trying things to see if they work.

Ray Bradbury

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