Poem prompt: “Today’s daily resource is the online exhibitions page of the International Folk Art Museum. I have a particular predilection for folk art, in which the strange and boisterous so often finds itself going hand-in-hand with practical objects of daily use. But the museum also showcases work of other sorts, like 100 Aspects of the Moon, a series of woodblock prints completed by the Japanese artist Taiso Yoshitoshi shortly before his death in 1892.

Last but not least, here’s today’s (optional) prompt. In her poem, “Living with a Painting,” Denise Levertov describes just that. And well, that’s a pretty universal experience, isn’t it? It’s the rare human structure – be it a bedroom, kitchen, dentist’s office, or classroom – that doesn’t have art on its walls, even if it’s only the photos on a calendar. Today, we’d like to challenge you to write your own poem about living with a piece of art.”

Her Statue's Gaze

Twilight drips through the window shade
side gap to interplay squid ink and 10K gold
chiaroscuro across cold cast bronze.
What is the carat weight of a star?

To see her living blink would blind me.
I almost recognize the sculptor's inspiration. 
Have I met her as a child? Am I not still a child? 
Is she me, were I a graven image of a goddess?

The image of my grave fades from mind's eye
every day, every hour, every minute I glance 
across the room to see her lips, her lean, her 
small fingers grasping the basket of Life and Death,
carved-cascading folds imitating a linen dress,
bare feet on false grass.

I want to take the false and make it real
again. Businessmen are rusting and ripping
and unearthing her Midgard veins, bleeding 
to build what they think is better 
than divine design.

Which of the nine worlds can I escape to?
Where will mortals thrive and not deprive native life
if our realm falls to the metal machines
that manufactured her face to be 
daily visible?

I look, and I am blessed.
I wonder, and I am blessed.
I pray, and her arms Spring to life,
reaching to embra--strangle.
In my contrived comfort, it feels the same.