Poetry Painting Project: Day 26

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 Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Sonnet 43, How Do I Love Thee?

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


ADDIE’S PAINTING

I Love Thee To The Depth
By Addie Hirschten

MY POEM

HOW I LOVE YOU

How do I love you?
Your smile is a fan of sun rays,
curiously light and lingering,
spread wide and airy over nested treetops,
where dream sparrows for first flight,
and sing of Love’s awakening,
and when from day’s horizon ends,
you arise as goddess of the gypsy moon,
what bliss it is to drink
from your harvest-giving womb.
Your eyes are Consolation’s stars,
and in them I’m forgiven—
all my mute transgressions,
entombed and untold,
and transmuted by your glance
into jewels and gold.


OUR INSPIRATION

HOW Do I LOVE THEE? (SONNET 43)
by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of being and ideal grace.
I love thee to the level of every day’s
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for right.
I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints. I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.


Notes:
Elizabeth Barrett Browning, 1806-1861. Born in Kelloe, Durham, England. English poet of the Victorian era.
Link to Biography: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/elizabeth-barrett-browning
Link to Poem: https://poets.org/poem/how-do-i-love-thee-sonnet-43


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/

I don’t think there’s any artist of any value who doesn’t doubt what they’re doing.

Francis Ford Coppola

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