“Circles” by Nikita Parik

Ekphrastic Challenge, July 2020: Editor’s Choice

 

Alcohol ink drawing of two circles overlapping in greens and browns

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.

[download: PDF / JPG]

__________

Nikita Parik

CIRCLES

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
July 2020, Editor’s Choice

__________

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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