Self-Portrait at Twenty-Eight, by ​Barbara Lydecker Crane

Self Portrait, by Albrecht Durer (Germany) 1500.

Self-Portrait at Twenty-Eight

No, the archetype’s not lost upon me:
one hand upraised to heart as if to bless,
I’m frontal, dark, symmetrical and pious.
Some have seen this pose as Christ Almighty.
It’s true I am endowed with special power
as an artist. I’ve kept it for myself;
this portrait rests upon my topmost shelf,
reminding me that every trumpet flower,
fluted lily, man and mandolin
all sing the clear perfection of their maker.  
I’ll make myself into a mover-shaker 
this new century. Remorse, chagrin,
humility, I do not choose to know.
My God creates above and I below.

​Barbara Lydecker Crane

Barbara Lydecker Crane has won Laureate’s Choice awards from the Maria Faust Sonnet Contest in 2016 and 2018, as well as First Prize in the 2011 Helen Schaible International Sonnet Contest. She was a finalist for the 2017 Rattle Poetry Prize.  She has published three chapbooks: Zero Gravitas (2012),  Alphabetricks (2013), and BackWords Logic (2017).  Her poems have appeared in First Things, Light, Measure, Rattle, Valparaiso Review, Think, Writer’s Almanac, and several anthologies.  She’s also an artist.