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      November 22, 2018What Is Not LostSharon Cote

      Image: “Hanging Collage” by Courtney Carroll. “What Is Not Lost” was written by Sharon Cote for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, October 2018, and selected as the Artist’s Choice.
      In my dream it was morning
      or evening, the sky lightly stained
      with Easter dyes,
      the fields and mountains
      glowing like an old stovetop,
      dark in spots.
       
      You were there, in a
      living tree, living, unlike you,
      but in my dream it was so
      and you were back.
       
      You played and sang
      and the music grew and grew
      and shifted the air around us
      and was so much more beautiful
      than even I remembered.
      It tasted like fruit on my lips,
      I could see it before me.
       
      And your music was calling
      others back too, everyone really,
      and those of us still
      on the ground stopped,
      stopped whatever we were doing
      and looked up and listened.
       
      And everyone was stunned
      or smiling, even the sky,
      even the tree, and you most of all
      until everyday light and
      shadows
      scrubbed it all away.
       
      But I’ll hold on to your music,
      clutch those notes tightly. They
      are mine to keep, they
      always were, and I’ll
      hold on to them as hard as I can.

      from Ekphrastic Challenge

      Comment from the artist, Courtney Carroll

      “I chose this poem because it captures the sensory feelings of memory so well. I enjoy the exploring the senses associated with someone loved and gone. It can seem like even trees smile when you think of that person.”

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