I signed up to do an exchange for Spark Art #50 with my friend Inkling Linda Mitchell. Linda creates wonderful collages, so I asked her to do the exchange with me. She sent me a collage and I sent her a poem. She was charged with creating a collage from my poem and me with creating a poem from her collage. Fun, right? It is fun when you are playing with a friend you know will be respectful of your work and who does good work herself.
The links to our exchange on the Spark website are here and here.
I am sharing my poem process that responded to this collage.
The first thing I noticed was the moon. I wrote the title first, “Moonlight Sonata” and played Beethovan’s Sonata for inspiration. I noticed the foreign words. I asked Linda about the flowers, but she didn’t know what they were. I decided they were edelweiss. I got stuck, though, and decided to use a poem I had written for Laura Shovan’s February project and combine it with the work I was doing on responding to the collage. I don’t usually do this, and it created a level of mystery to the poem. And I’m OK with that.
Moonlight Sonata
Moon, wild orb nightly shining
high above the oak trees.
Your pull breaks waves
and concrete where oak roots
rise like bread, yeast pressing
our foreign earth.
How can you feel sadness
if you’ve not known joy?
When the edelweiss blooms,
we breathe in sweet scent,
welcome Spring
and sing praise for your goodness, Moon.
We push on and on
until, like you, the flower, the oak
we find our light
and shine.
© Margaret Simon
There are only a few dates left for the Kidlit Progressive poem. Claim your day here.
Dear Margaret, yay for mystery and moonlight and edelweiss! What a lovely combination of art and words, this is…you and LInda are a beautiful pairing! xo
I’m always drawn to the ystery of the moon and I can feel it in your poem. Your words always form such wonderful images:
“where oak roots
rise like bread, yeast pressing
our foreign earth.”
What a rich and nourishing for the soul creative exchange. What a gift that you can experience it with a friend.
Ooooh, what a fabulous combination of art and poetry. I especially adore your first stanza and that “wild orb.”
This is so lovely, as is your friends collage. The moon is inspirational and you did a great job weaving its power into your poem.
Margaret, you and Linda M created a marvelous artistic expression. Singularly each piece of the final product is an entity onto itself but in combination the pieces meld into a beautiful whole. I like how your poem moves from the moon, to spring, to an inspirational ending. Thank you for sharing your process. It is always intriguing reading how a poem evolves. I also like these lines:
rise like bread, yeast pressing
our foreign earth
Thanks, friend. This was fun!
Margaret, I am impressed by both the collage and the poem and how they work together. It’s as if you were sitting together, you and Linda, creating together! How joyful. And, that is what I enjoy most about this post and the products – the joy involved in camaraderie and collaboration. Congratulations to you both for making something beautiful!
Oh, a love song to Moon. Lovely, Margaret, and a lovely collage, Linda. Beautiful, both of you. I love…
“We push on and on until…we find our light and shine.”
Good advice for all.
Brilliant collaboration! 🙂
I’ve loved seeing the results of your creative exchange – I love seeing art inspire and be in dialogue with other art. Your language here is beautiful and powerful:
“Your pull breaks waves
and concrete where oak roots
rise like bread, yeast pressing
our foreign earth. ”
I love those lines. This poem invites us to read slowly and savor it – thanks for sharing it with us today!
Such a lovely pairing. You two are amazing!
So lovely! And thanks for sharing a bit of your process with us too!
These are my favorite lines: “Your pull breaks waves
and concrete where oak roots
rise like bread, yeast pressing
our foreign earth.” Wow, the way you used break and bread with so much in between!
Beautiful piece Linda created, and I enjoyed hearing you read it today! Your yeast reminds me of yeast as it’s making a chemical reaction and bubbling up–which I think works well with the “oak roots” rising and “pressing
our foreign earth.” All a very organic life force, flowing, lovely, thanks!
Your words and Linda’s collage are a magical pairing!