Art – Poetry – Sue Dion and Jody Zolli

For our 2018 Art & Poetry pairing, one pairing was with artist Sue Dion and poet Jody Zolli.

Here are the works they created!

Sue Dion provided this artwork to Jody:

Still of the Night

In response, Jody wrote the following poem:

Still of the Night

We wake in the early bright
Rouse to sip the sun
Sap rising we bestir our boughs.

Children’s cries echo
Below outstretched limbs
First a flurried stop and go
Then lying soft and lazy.

Trickling laughter
Through swaying shadows
Their tiny fingers tracing
The ancient braille of our bark.

Scattering homewards late
Sun sinks bittersweet
Shades the sky to apricot and carmine
All sounds ebb to silence.

At twilight we turn inwards
Sap retires to august roots
Breezes sigh at water’s edge
Draw brisk familiar fingers
Between fleeting needles.

Moon wanders wayward overhead
Mirrored in our placid pond
Lapping at fixed feet
Day now done, we drink deep.

We do our best growing in the dark.

The second half of this pairing involved Jody giving Sue a poem as a starting point. Jody provided this poem:

Wisteria Ignored

Sometimes beauty thrives on fumes
Delicately scenting traffic
Draping languidly over guardrails
Like gossamer groups of grapes.

I’ve seen your cousins cozened
Cultivated and espaliered
Preened, prepared, presented
To the pampered and refined.

But here, some accident of nature
Or, perhaps, some strange intent
To bless the autos hurtling by
With your phantom fragrance.

By now you must be unsurprised
By the momentary wonder
Delivered by distracted stares
From gridlock-stilled wide eyes.

Atop the derelict filth and rust
Bestrewn with wind-thrown cast-off trash
Blossoms rustle in spring breezes
Beckoning toward summer.

In response, Sue created this artwork:

2018 Art-Poetry Pairing main page