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

What Survives Them, by David Meischen

10/26/2021

0 Comments

 
Picture
Mourning Picture, by Edwin Romanzo Elmer (USA) 1890

What Survives Them
 
i.
The child who died lives on, preserved
in pigments by her father. Remembered. Re-
embodied. The child and her lamb, the rattan stroller 
nestling her doll. One hundred and thirty years later I gaze 
at her red-ribboned hat orphaned on the grass, transmuted into 
pixels, into light made visible as colour. And back to the lamb, pale 
hand at its collar, striped frock, pale face—an image of an image 
of a child no longer breathing, her parents seated nearby, stiff 
in mourning clothes, their love no proof against a burst
appendix, her name a whisper in the lilac shade. Effie.
 
ii.
My great-grandmother left no painting 
of her youngest. Oma kept Ewald Morgenroth’s room
instead, ashtray and pipe on a shelf set into the headboard, 
uniforms hanging in the closet. Pressed. Waiting. I stood inside 
this still life once, dust and silence coating every surface, Oma 
gone to her grave, the old house leaning in on itself. A trunk 
biding in the attic, her husband’s wedding shirt folded there. 
A Valentine card signed to my grandfather when he was a boy.
 
iii.
Julius Arthur Bruns is on my mind 
this afternoon, my grandmother’s beloved 
brother. He peers from the one surviving photo, 
a round-faced little boy, youngest of five, flanked
by Willie and Anton, clearly brothers—dark eyes, dark hair, 
dark suits, silky bows tied loosely at the collar. Beside them, 
stair-stepped all in white, Lillie and Adele, sombre as their brothers.
 
Johann Wilhelm Bruns was not yet fifty when he stood here with them--
curly hair, thick moustache, no hint of gray. He’d buried a wife 
in Niedersachsen, crossed the Atlantic with daughters Anna, 
Frieda, Helene. Married again, fathered the five gathered 
here. Buried their mother. Assembled them today, 
a father mourning inevitable loss: little Julius, 
hands loosely fisted, holding on, his faulty
appendix keeping its secret. For now.
 
Like Effie, Julius does not smile. 
Like his mother, he has no claim on lasting.

David Meischen

A Pushcart honoree, with a personal essay in Pushcart Prize XLII, David Meischen is the author of Anyone’s Son, winner of the John A. Robertson Award for Best First Book of Poetry from the Texas Institute of Letters (TIL). David has twice received the Kay Cattarulla Award for Best Short Story from TIL, most recently for “Crossing at the Light,” lead story in The Distance Between Here and Elsewhere: Three Stories (Storylandia, Summer 2020). His work has appeared in The Common, Copper Nickel, The Evansville Review, Salamander, Southern Poetry Review, The Southern Review, Valparaiso Fiction Review, and elsewhere. A former juror for the Kimmel Harding Nelson center for the arts, David completed a 2018 writing residency at Jentel Arts. Co-founder and Managing Editor of Dos Gatos Press, he lives in Albuquerque, NM with his husband—also his co-publisher and co-editor—Scott Wiggerman.

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



    ​
    ​Archives
    ​

    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