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      November 18, 2021GriefSusan Carroll Jewell

      Image: “Family” by Gouri Prakash. “Grief” was written by Susan Carroll Jewell for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, October 2021, and selected as the Artist’s Choice. (PDF / JPG)
      She lands with the others, but now has turned away
      without ruffling this pond. Each feather carries its own
       
      reflection, wings tucked, tails up, self-involved,
      unaware that she is drifting clumsy and tired
       
      into a marshy space. You watch, guessing at the patterns
      beneath the surface, how legs rhythmically punch webs
       
      through water, the complicated currents she cannot navigate.
      Her hollow bones fill with heaviness. The others move on.
       
      She drifts away in the open, abandoned like the egg
      that never hatched, the unfamiliar commonplace of loss.
       
      You want to tell her that nothing lasts forever, show her
      the brilliant colors of this day, but a blind eye cannot see
       
      even if it tries. You want to believe in science, that simple
      observation can affect what happens, that your attention
       
      can make a difference, alter her direction. If this were true,
      we could clear the heavy air. We are so small on this tiny pond.

      from https://admin.rattle.com/ekphrastic/

      Comment from the artist, Gouri Prakash

      “As I read the poems, I felt like I was looking through a kaleidoscope of perspectives. No two poems had the same idea or interpretation. In line, ‘Grief’ is a poem that reminds me of a different situation or a new context every time I read it. The central idea of how another’s grief can be so palpable that it leads to one’s own feelings of hopelessness at being unable to serve as a source of respite, is gracefully renditioned. The last line, ‘We are so small on this tiny pond,’ underlines the sense of despair that pervades our tightly-knit worlds.”

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