Poetry Painting Project: Day 8

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 Sara Teasdale’s poem, Spirit’s House.

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


ADDIE’S PAINTING

Spirit’s House By Addie Hirschten

MY POEM

HOMELAND

still starry night
and moonlight to read by
the book of my homeland
a page for the cloudy meadow
a page for the arid plain
a page for the white mountain
a page for the roiling sea

a page for a forest of corpses
smoke from the ash

dead embers of the branch
of skeletal trees
the air does not move here
and it is hard to breathe

phantoms fathoms deep
purveyors of all my wrongs
kick the dust from their graves
to haunt my faltering steps
and whisper to my listening ear
of the clawing forgotten past

father why
mother why
were you not an aegis
against this cruel world
that fashioned fanged Cerberus
from the marble of my child soul?

and yet there is the all-consuming sun
the page of the desert of
my solitary wandering
the sand and dry wind will cleanse me
of my shame
and though I am not blameless
my god is just and decrees
to reckon and remember
to finger my rosary
each bead a wicked deed
and count them always


OUR INSPIRATION

SPIRIT’S HOUSE
by Sara Teasdale

From naked stones of agony
I will build a house for me;
As a mason all alone
I will raise it, stone by stone,
And every stone where I have bled
Will show a sing of dusky red.
I have not gone the way in vain,
For I have the good of all my pain;
My spirit’s quiet house will be
Built of naked stones I trod
On roads where I lost sight of God.


Notes:

Sara Teasdale, 1884-1933. Born in St. Louis, Missouri.
Link to Biography: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/sara-teasdale
Link to Poem: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/browse?contentId=13729


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 far too important a thing ever to talk seriously about.

Oscar Wilde

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