So fragile, so precious

[dcmarti1]

 

Bulwark and rampart of stone and steel,
Its tower casts disfigured shadows
Upon a lawn of 90 year old trees
Where man, lion, bull, and eagle
Debate the immediate or ultimate
Restitution of all things with God.

Sepia photographs from the War
After the War to End All Wars 
- Taken before he was so haphazardly
Missing, captured, still missing, and then
Liberated – are encased in leather
And secured in plastic, surely forgotten.

A yellow sky of no ones liking:
Quiet presage to a disconsolate grey,
Replete with drab and weighty clouds
Whose minatory forms chatter with thunder,
Whose distant rains can still erase
Stone and paper - so fragile, so precious.

[tonyv]

Marti, I picture grounds, replete with an ornate representation of the tetramorph. I picture the inner sanctum of the home where an album and some loosely strewn photographs sit amongst current bills and junk mail on a writing desk. But mostly there is that image I am unable to put out of my mind: that "yellow sky of no ones liking," that "quiet presage to a disconsolate grey." I exist within that sky.

Awesome work!

Tony

[David W. Parsley]

This is some of your most atmospheric work, Marti.  There are things going on in here that I have not even come to grips with: something about wars and futile outrage, storms that intrude with equivalent chaos and malevolence, or lack thereof.

Thanks (I think!),
- David