Susan Rich and Carol Sawyer

Carol and Susan Consider Various Objects Left Behind By Carol’s Father (Still Life with Mirrored Globe, by Carol Sawyer), 2015.

Your Still Life Builds A Home Inside My Head
 
In the late afternoon hour we lose an f-stop
as light bleeds out of the bandaged sky--
 
and like phantom detectives with wide-brimmed hats
 
we re-examine the drop cloth, the passport,
the magnetized colour of 4 ‘o’ clock air.
 
In this ghost harbour, we re-arrange
 
pipe stands and glass slides. We multi-task tabletops
where objects could topple at anytime--
 
left or right--let them topple!
 
Here in the land of deferred decisions,
a hand-painted gazing ball reflects on a floating scroll.
 
In this alchemical mirror, in this ark of a studio--
 
built out of instinct and breath, through windows
clouded and clear--
 
under the sign of the light metre--
 
I’ll meet you here: a bright space I’ll keep inside my head.
Another country      another life still new.

Susan Rich

Susan Rich has written two essays on writing about visual art, Entering the Picture  and Dark Room.  Susan is the author of four poetry collections including Cloud Pharmacy, The Alchemist’s Kitchen, Cures Include Travel, and The Cartographer’s Tongue: Poems of the World (White Pine Press). She is a co-editor of The Strangest of Theatres: Poets Crossing Borders (Poetry Foundation) and has received awards from The Times Literary Supplement (London), PEN USA, and the Fulbright Foundation. Rich’s poems appeared in the Harvard Review, Poetry Ireland Review, and World Literature Today.