Readers Choice Award Contest Poem: “The poet says this is how we should see” by Melinda Coppola

Editor’s Note:  Nominees for the Songs of Eretz Readers Choice Award have been or will be published/reprinted in Songs of Eretz Poetry Review every weekday from February 19 to February 27.  Vote for your favorite in March by sending an email to Editor@SongsOfEretz.com.  The winner will be announced in April and receive a one hundred dollar honorarium.

The poet says this is how we should see

Melinda Coppola

"Kaleidoscope" Watercolor and Ink on Paper
By J. Artemus Gordon

A prism is lifted to the sun. Imagine 

a million nuances of color and shine, 

fractal languages of symmetry

resting perfectly

between breaths or heartbeats. 

The artist knows the power of spaces,

without which there would be no means 

to shape the eye’s longing. 

Musician has this same knowing,

gleaned through the eardrum’s

oscillations:  there is no song 

without pauses

between notes. 

Someone in your diaspora of friends 

will die tonight, and in the moments 

between last exhale

and the doctor’s legal declaration,

a poem is written on the window

in frost.  It lingers 

only as long as two pairs of eyes can see it,

and if the heart that goes 

with one pair can hear it, 

a song will be born,

and if the soul that goes

with one pair can see it,

there will be a rendering

in charcoal, or paint, or crayon.

This is how life continues;

The poetry between things

must draw the attention 

of some realized aspect of God,

like you, or you,

and your near-desperate desire

to interpret the miracle

becomes the language, the love, the soil

from which

something else can be born.

Poet’s Notes:  I am fascinated with the importance of spaces between things and with the way that art and music and stars and poems and heartbeats cannot exist without them.  Poems come to me when I pay rapt attention to life with all of my senses. They begin as seeds cast off from images and sounds and feelings that long to be born again as words. Sometimes, when fed by my loving curiosity, those seeds can be coaxed to root and leaf and blossom. There must be space, though, for them to grow and flourish.  This poem was born of my desire to convey the immense beauty and possibilities that live in the quiet intervals between our scheduled activities and the things we check off our to-do lists.

About the Poet:  Melinda Coppola has been writing in some form for nearly five decades.  Her work has been published in several magazines, books, and periodicals including I Come from the World, Harpur Palate, Kaleidoscope, The Autism Perspective, Spirit First, Chicken Soup for the Soul, Welcome Home, and Celebrations.  She is an artist, yoga teacher, and mother to an amazing daughter with special needs and enjoys infusing the work of her heart with her voice as a poet.  Coppola nourishes her creative spirit with singing, early morning walks, collecting and making art with beach stones, cooking, spending quiet time with her husband and daughter, and communing with her cats.