Ear Stories, by Alexis Leigh

The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne, by Leonardo Da Vinci (Italy) 1501–1519

​Ear Stories

​After Leonardo da Vinci’s The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne
 
Alarm bells sound, and you recall
a half-grasped dream tucked away
in the Carpathian mountain range, where 
the ridges of your remembrance turn
Rapido blue. You say, "now this is
something else," though it can’t be
pinpointed yet, only that it’s been revealed
the only way through is to go all the way 
in and through and in and through--
towers of past are put in stone 
behind you, the fading fortress 
washed out amid deepening hues, 
as sisters fold sapphire over each
other's laps with an infant near 
snow melted streams, tangled with 
a lamb that takes rest by a cluster of 
bluebells, leaning into noontime shade. 
Once, I caught a lark as it played 
the lyre, only to let her zealous body 
pass an aureole of hope, suffusing her 
feathers a royal blue, clean through.
Why gush of the color so much? 
It consumes most of earth's 
circumference—if blues are 
in endless supply, tell me more 
ear stories before morning light. 
Take me to cascades that crush 
blueberries underneath my bed, 
using only the steady frame of your
voice—show, show me more,
I promise I am still listening. 

Alexis Leigh

Alexis Leigh is a deep-image poet fascinated by epiphanic shifts, or as she delights to think of it, a literary vessel for Christ’s light to dwell, convinced that the creative arts serve as a powerful window of worship that leads humanity back to the beauty of God’s heart. She created the literary journal, Vessels of Light, to live as a virtual lighthouse holding literary vessels that shine. She was chosen as a Harriet Williams Emerging Writer for 2026 and received the Mary Purcell Beach Scholarship for the best written essay in 17th-18th century studies. Alexis has been published in places such as Rip-Rap, Ekstasis ( now Inkwell), Calla Press, Alabaster Co, Heart of Flesh, The Way Back To Ourselves, and Christianity Today. She is currently completing an MFA in poetry at Cal State University Long Beach.