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      November 28, 2024The Scene Is SetRose Lennard

      Image: “Zaubererturm” by Jennifer S. Lange. “The Scene Is Set” was written by Rose Lennard for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, October 2024, and selected as the Editor’s Choice.
      Time slows like ancient windows flowing,
      reflections warp, horizons bend their bounds
      and history is waiting to get going.
      The trembling ash sing all the root-found
      songs of hope they know; sound a warning
      in shades of myth, the mauve around a wound.
      Towers that fell have risen again this morning
      vine-wound, cloud-capped, tall ships marooned.
       
      Ravens hang forever turning overhead,
      their blessed eggs lie cool in distant nests;
      they dream of naked chicks with noisy gapes
      to stuff with dug-up grubs until they fledge.
      The screen awakes, the scene is set.
      You cast the spell, the world remakes.
       

      from Ekphrastic Challenge

      Comment from the series editor, Megan O'Reilly

      “‘The Scene is Set’ is masterfully composed in every way–the flawless rhymes, the fluid cadence, the depth of meaning. Lennard’s descriptions of Jennifer S. Lange’s piece are both visually and acoustically striking: ‘vine-wound, cloud-capped, tall ships marooned.’ The poet references ‘shades of myth,’ a fitting interpretation of ‘Zaubererturm’ and its soft, subtle invocation of fairytale and folklore. There’s an otherwordly quality to the image, interpreted by the poet as a different kind of reality (‘time slows … reflections warp…horizons bend …’). The poem’s ending, and its depiction of a temporal, illusory world, feels like a perfect homage to a gorgeously enigmatic work of art.”

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