Gerda in the Garden
I rest a while in this enclosure
walk through primrose, spirea, eranthus,
kneel among dark-green dagger-leaf crocus
trail fingers on trembling frost-flower
(absence—) … stand on stone-edged path of heather
pluck ruffled heads and garland dianthus
drop star-dart bittersweet, brush past iris
watch pale-winged insects wheel-swoop glide-hover
painted flowers on the old woman’s hat
petals, petals, brush stroke wheels of roses
rise from sleep under watered earth with tears
“Is he dead and gone?” the blooms say: “not that—
we’ve been where dead things are” it exposes.
Shake bolt—step out—cold wind; now autumn’s here.
I created this a few years ago; the idea was to create a print that combined a poem with a visual element, the way that William Blake did in his prints. because it’s copper etching, I had to write all the words in mirror writing so when it was transferred to paper, the letters would turn out facing the right way! (as you can see, that was a bit of a challenge). The sonnet I wrote, which appeared in How to Write A Poem, is based on Gerta’s stay with the old woman in Hans Christian Andersen’s The Snow Queen.