This quartz was lifted

flew slowly here borne by ice

to cure writer’s block.

Sat here while we invented

alphabets, and now these words.

Matthew Wright, lowercase paradise

Matthew is a fellow Vermonter and Friend. His poetry speaks to me strongly so I wanted to share it with you. If you are not familiar with it, a tanka is a form of ancient Japanese poetry similar to a haiku. It’s syllable count is 5-7-5-7-7

This poem is incredible in its use of the concept of time, space and the inter-relation of human and geologic time. Plus it’s just so clever!

A glacial erratic is a large stone left behind by a retreating glacier. You can find them here in Vermont nestled in the  forest, or setting in the middle of fields, undisturbed for millennia. I painted this meadow, one misty autumn day, with a glacial erratic in the center foreground.