The Ekphrastic Review
  • The Ekphrastic Review
  • The Ekphrastic Challenges
    • Challenge Archives
  • Ebooks
  • Prizes
  • Book Shelf
    • Ekphrastic Book Shelf
    • Contributors' Book Shelf
    • TERcets Podcast
  • Workshops
  • Give
  • Submit
  • Contact
  • About/Masthead

On Seeing The Little Shepherdess, by Jennifer Wenn

7/12/2020

0 Comments

 
Picture
The Little Shepherdess, by Paul Peel (Canada) 1892

On Seeing The Little Shepherdess

Swimming the glorious, noisy tides of
World Pride 2014, exultant in the
blooming of my long dormant femininity,
borne along by an electric current,
immersed in a supportive sea of
companion emergent chrysalids.

Perspective soon needed, floating off
to bathe in art’s calming waters and
breathe in the quiet of Toronto’s AGO;
approaching Paul Peel’s little nook,
like me a London, Ontario local,
best work done in exotic Paris,
taken so young, not yet thirty-two;
my ruminations interrupted,
flashing back twenty-seven years,
a special exhibit in our home town,
one painting that unfathomably wound
a tentacle around my heart.

And there, high up on a wall,
the screen of trees in the distance,
meadow sloping down and left
to a pond just in front,
lily pads and blue irises, attendant
blossoms to the little shepherdess
bursting from the background,
seated on a large rock,
her charges grazing amongst the trees,
crook, clothes and cares cast aside,
hair garlanded with delicate pink flowers,
skin glowing with expectation,
a demurely sensual and unveiled adolescent,
quietly bold, gazing at nature’s mirror
echoing her incipient beauty,
left foot curled shyly under,
right testing the pool awaiting her.

Awash in a wave of meaning, transfixed,
sinking down to contemplate this image done in oils
a century ago, but seeing my reflection.
Separated by decades in age from
the model posing outside for the first time,
this moment by more than one hundred years
from the young artist’s loving strokes,
his vision’s eternal youth from
my all-too-real aging flesh and blood;
but we three, model, vision and I,
still compeers, sister adventurers
setting out into a vast beckoning ocean.

​Jennifer Wenn

Jennifer Wenn is a trans-identified writer and speaker from London, Ontario.  Recently published is her first poetry chapbook, A Song of Milestones (Harmonia Press). She has published poems in Open Minds Quarterly, Tuck Magazine, Synaeresis, Big Pond Rumours, LOCP Fresh Voices, Wordsfestzine, and the anthology Things That Matter, and has written From Adversity to Accomplishment, a family and social history.  She has also spoken at a wide variety of venues.  Jennifer has a day job as a Systems Analyst at Canada Life and is the proud parent of two adult children.
0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    The Ekphrastic Review
    Picture
    Current Prompt
    COOKIES/PRIVACY
    This site uses cookies to deliver your best navigation experience this time and next. Continuing here means you consent to cookies. Thank you.
    Join us on Facebook:
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture



    ​
    ​Archives
    ​

    May 2023
    April 2023
    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015

    Lorette C. Luzajic theekphrasticreview@gmail.com 

  • The Ekphrastic Review
  • The Ekphrastic Challenges
    • Challenge Archives
  • Ebooks
  • Prizes
  • Book Shelf
    • Ekphrastic Book Shelf
    • Contributors' Book Shelf
    • TERcets Podcast
  • Workshops
  • Give
  • Submit
  • Contact
  • About/Masthead