One of the Reasons I Write - Happy Surprises...

I came home last night to find the nicest email from a graphic design student in California named Laura Burk. She is studying graphic designer and 3-D animation and her class was given an assignment to "illustrate a poem."

With the luck of Google, she stumbled across my work and my poem Half-Moon Couple that was published on the Adirondack Review many moons ago--2002? 2003?

She felt inspired and create the above image after reading it. Personally, I'm truly amazed by it and absolutely the depth to it.

If I ever forgot what I love about poetry, this is it.

Seven years later, my Half-Moon Couple inspires another artist who creates this incredible artwork. Maybe someone reading this today will see her work and be inspired to write a poem. You never know what your poem is going to do when you send it out into the universe and you shouldn't. Poems should just be free to live without you and your worry about final outcome, what happens could just surprise you.

Here's my poem, published on Adirondack Review many moons ago that Laura created her artwork from:


HALF-MOON COUPLE
after the lithograph by Marc Chagall


While I am two parts: hands
and veil, you are mostly suit.
Somehow, there is enough sage
between us, sticks of lavender, stems
of this canoe. Forget that I am drawn
out of troubles, that love

anchors itself to certain beds. I am praying
for a paler sun, a simple wedding
band without stars, longer arms to pull you
close.

The moon holds us in its boat
again and again; I will forgive,
you will apologize and night
won't seem as bad as when we both sleep
in our own half-rooms, half-lives,
our half-joys illuminating only part of the sky.



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By the way, you can visit Laura Burk's website here and see other artwork she created. Plus she's available for hire if you need any graphic designer work.