Image: “Bird Ascending the Fire” by Barbara Hageman Sarvis. “Wildfire Dreams” was written by Linda Vandlac Smith for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, May 2024, and selected as the Artist’s Choice. (PDF / JPG)
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WILDFIRE DREAMS
at night sleep slides
its matchbox open
sparks old torches
a woodland of flares
twizzling up through
brittle boughs of
dream all wick from
roots to treetops
everywhere lake
laps heat’s edge at
the border of what is
and isn’t afire what is
wind or what creates
it as smoke makes its
lateral move through
curve of vision nearly
obfuscates a bird risen
from shadow’s char
not phoenix but drone
misshapen angel or
ancestor I cry out for
any stranger born into
a wildfire of dreams
only a distortion of
myself parting troubled
clouds making orange
apologies from within
the same dark scowl
that ignites thunderstorm
this incubator of flame
that renews forest
with one jagged strike
—from Ekphrastic Challenge
May 2024, Artist’s Choice
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Comment from the artist, Barbara Hageman Sarvis: “I loved the poems very much, but felt that the poet of ‘Wildfire Dreams’ did an excellent job creating words, metaphors, and a narrative that describe both literally and emotionally the visual imagery in my painting.”
