House vs. Home, by Marjorie Maddox (after Karen Elias)

Wonderland Two, by Karen Elias (USA) contemporary

House vs. Home                    
 
Bright among pines, dark
bark, full backdrop
 
of heart-high fields,
the surreal uncurls a wild
 
secret, opens its bird-sized
entrance to call you
 
to the shadowed insides
of the blue tin house
 
where not once
have swallows emerged
 
above each precisely
crafted rose—one fuchsia,
 
one salmon—their metal
petals peeking out
 
in fern-filtered daylight
to lush woods that’s aren’t
 
actually there, everything real
and green sprouting only
 
from the verdant trails of mind
you’re just beginning to travel
 
beyond your kitsch-decorated 
garden and manicured lawn

where even painted pink 
flamingos parade themselves 

beyond suburbia and into
the allure of woods.

Marjorie Maddox

This poem and image is forthcoming in Small Earthly Space (Shanti Arts).

Marjorie Maddox has 16 collections of poetry—including How Can I Look It Up When I Don’t Know How It’s Spelled? Spelling Mnemonics and Grammar Tricks,  Seeing Things, as well as the ekphrastic collaborations Small Earthly Space and Heart Speaks, Is Spoken For (both with Karen Elias) and In the Museum of My Daughter’s Mind (with daughter Anna Lee Hafer www.hafer.work, a 2023 Dragonfly Book Award in photography/fine arts and American Fiction Winner Award in poetry) and others. She's also published a story collection, 4 children’s books, and the anthologies Common Wealth: Contemporary Poets on Pennsylvania and forthcoming Keystone Poetry (co-editor with Jerry Wemple). Assistant editor of Presence, shehosts Poetry Moment for WPSU. www.marjoriemaddox.com
 
After teaching college for 40 years, Dr. Karen Elias is an artist/activist, using photography to record the beauty and fragility of the world and to raise awareness about climate change. Her work is in private collections, has been exhibited in galleries, and has won numerous awards. She is a board member of the Clinton County PA Arts Council and curates the annual juried photography exhibit. In addition to Heart Speaks…, her collaborations have appeared in many journals, including Valiant Scribe and About Place. Her plays have been chosen by the Climate Change Theatre Action and performed in 8 countries.