My annual National Poetry Month ekphrastic challenge has become a collaboration between Jane Cornwell (artist), and poets Susan Richardson, Samantha, Jay Gandhi, Ali Jones and myself. April 7th

So, the first week of Paul’s Ekphrastic Challenge ends with another gorgeous painting and flames!!!! I can’t believe I made it a whole week!

The Wombwell Rainbow

Forest Fire

When the sun burns too brightly and everything is rinsed dry,
The sparks spreads like gossip around an urban school gate.
Trees have lost their speech, stand silent witnesses to all.
Everything is going out, not in a two by two procession,
But in a rip of tooth and claw, flashing beneath a flame’s roar.
Everything is dwindled to ash, and rising isn’t a promise.
We do not always come back to the places we need to be,
The wheat grows thinner and the salmon do not leap.
Pain rises gently with the dawn, inviting, before it blinds, again.

– Ali Jones

Ever Upward

“As the deer pants for the water, so pants my soul for You, O God.” –Ps. 42:1

Remember when running with the deer
Was sufficient?
When carefree
Innocence
Was not frowned upon?
When fleeing a fire to safety

Seemed a success?
Now, it’s not…

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