Cheryl Leibovitz and Joanne Lozar Glenn

Untitled 1 & 2
By Cheryl Leibovitz
Painted using Joanne Lozar Glenn’s poem (below) as inspiration

Gift
Photo, circa 1968, Round-Up Lake
By Joanne Lozar Glenn
You remember, don’t you, the sea-glass-green lake,
sand and grass and dust tickling your feet
as you stood near the wooden picnic table,
Mom under a shade tree, Dad at the grill,
charcoal bursting into flame, blistering the skin
of hot dogs, melting onions into sinewy brown strands?
Your head is down, tilted sideways;
I see only your little boy’s back, all skin and ribs.
You are reaching for a potato chip with one hand,
the other dragging a towel at your side. Remember
how you couldn’t get the water out of your ear,
how that made crunching those chips a constant
echo in your skull, while the now-and-then breeze
laid silk feathers against your face?

Years later you continue this ritual—the picnic at a lake,
charcoals roasting the foods of summer, lawn chairs
nestled under leafy trees. You didn’t know then
that you’d make it, you had no map for the struggle,
just the tools your father left you. You remember them, don’t you?
The spatula and the grill, and his litany:
he had the best damn kids in the world.
It was enough, wasn’t it? to go on.

——————————————————-

Untitled
By Cheryl Leibovitz
Inspiration Piece provided to Joanne Lozar Glenn

Joanne Lozar Glenn‘s response to Cheryl Leibovitz’s painting (above)

Sonnet: Blue gathered itself…
…and claimed heaven as its first home.
–Judi K. Beach, “Blue,” in How Far Light Must Travel

And like children everywhere, we saw stories in the clouds.
A boy and girl, in profile, smiling in the alcove.
A woman beckoning in a doorway.
Ganesh, trunk uplifted, signaling good fortune.
Then blue fell to earth and shattered into numberless forms.
One, an eye opening—or closing.
Another, a cross festooned with palm fronds, prelude to Guernica rising,
Guernica always rising, though crosses are festooned with palm fronds
And eyes open or close at will. We choose.
Blue falling to earth, shattering into nameless, numberless forms.
Ganesh, trunk uplifted, a reminder of hope.
A veiled woman beckoning, this time in an open field.
A boy and girl kissing in the alcove.
Like children everywhere, making our own stories from the clouds.