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      August 27, 2020CirclesNikita Parik

      Image: “Conflict Resolution” by Aurore Uwase Munyabera. “Circles” was written by Nikita Parik for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, July 2020, and selected as the Editor’s Choice.
      On a page
      a word
      stirs.
       
      Stirring stalks
      flower
      buds of May.
       
      May showers
      tease
      our forlorn skies,
       
      Skies that mate,
      then split
      to birth a language:
       
      this language that is
      shaped like
      a yellow flower.
       
      A yellow flower
      crowns
      my pretty heartache,
       
      a heartache that weaves
      sunsets
      around a single word:
       
      a single word
      that stirs
      on my lonely page.

      from Ekphrastic Challenge

      Comment from the editor, Timothy Green

      “A note included with the submission explained that this form is called AnthAdi, a style long-used in Tamizh literature, in which the variation of the ending word of the first stanza becomes the first word of the next stanza. I’d never heard of this form before, and I love the way the short lines move gracefully down the page—it sings with quiet introspection. But what made me keep coming back was the mystery of what the ‘single word’ might be. Especially when combined with the visual art, Nikita’s poem manages to tell a whole story without ever telling the story.”

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