Art: Nancy Shuler
LET IT COME TO YOU
Don’t coax.
Don’t lurch forward,
don’t throw logs across to reach it –
it will disperse.
Let it come like rain against your skin.
Like a dog with a broken chain.
Like wrappers tangled in the grass
after spring’s first thaw.
Don’t chase after it
in the direction of the wind.
Don’t grab on –
it will crumble in your fist.
Once you have a hold you will feel
a filament inside you begin to glow.
Don’t put it in a plastic bag
to carry home,
like a yellow angelfish
or by morning you’ll find it
in the small bowl on your table –
with the plastic seaweed
and bright blue rocks –
still and floating.
About the author:
Alison Prine‘s debut collection of poems, Steel, was chosen for the Cider Press Review Book Award and came out in 2016. Steel was a finalist for the 2017 Vermont Book Award. Her poems have appeared in The Virginia Quarterly Review, Shenandoah, Harvard Review, Hunger Mountain, and Prairie Schooner among others. She lives in Burlington, Vermont and works as a psychotherapist.
Art: Nancy Shuler
In the artist’s words:
I enjoy turning my photographs into virtual paintings by adding various filters and techniques to my original shots. I have developed this method of “Photographic Art” over the many years in which I have been a photographer. Each photograph undergoes an unique and creative process to bring out its own specific beauty by emphasizing its distinctive composition and lighting. Each photo is printed on canvas to further increase its depth and intensity. Each canvas photo is sprayed with an acid free acrylic coating to protect its surface and insurer its longevity.