Creative Expressions is a space for local poets and writers to share their work and is supported by the Lake County Arts Council. For more information and to submit your original work, email rvschmidt2@gmail.com.
When He Was the Other
By Georgina Marie
Things that remind me of your face:
walking up to coastal edges,
500 pastels in distances,
then splinters.
Wooden stakes and jagged pieces
of glass under my shoes. I came across them
on the way down the muddy path.
There is art in the markings on driftwood totems
that face toward the salt in these cliffs;
they have thoughts.
There is no art in your hands
when veins and the lines on your palms
are trenches that don’t know truth,
they carry anything but.
Do you even know what truth is?
It’s in the two million seeds of dandelion
the wind blew into my chest,
and not one of them contained
words spoken by you.
I told you once I trusted
the charcoal on the walls,
the sage smoke in corners
more than your face,
especially now.
Because I see it in
the paint on the walls
the blood on the floor
the witness in church bells that never sound,
and they all remind me how much more profound it is
to trust the ones who tell you
not to open your eyes.
Black Oak
By Jaka
The tree crashed to earth
in a sprawl of crushed and tangled limbs,
a towering black oak
that had survived countless
storms and drought conditions.
But over the years
unseen traumas and saturated ground,
heavy winds and wounded limbs,
weakened its hold.
This provider This sustainer
reduced suddenly
to a chaotic pile
of broken majesty,
an undignified demise
for this centuries-old tree.
Yet in death,
it still provides, it still sustains.
In humble gratitude
I gather firewood
for winters to come.
Living
By Sunny Franson
Who can breathe
Past the dark corners
Of inhumanity?
Who can see light
At the end of
The tunnel of
All the darknesses?
Tears of joy
For the sanity
Of understanding —
Black and white,
Red and yellow,
Sabres sheathed,
Children emerging to play
From small dark rooms
That kept them safe.
In the swirling cauldron
Of love and hatred,
Of song and dance,
Of tears and unbearable sorrow,
We must breathe.
We see light
But it is not always visible.
Light and dark patterns
Shift and intensify
When the sun is out
And when it is not.
The truth is
Light cannot always be seen.
Darkness is not always there.
Incandescence
And blackness
Are integral parts of energy.
