(Response to Theresa Moore’s reduction linocut print, View of Loch Long)

Elaine Elizabeth Belz
A PHENOMENOLOGY OF TREES BEFORE DAWN

any unenumerated morning—

early chill resolved with tea
& cardigans—
you’re already out by the lakeside

I fumble with paper—
still sloughing off sleep—

eyes still trying to dream
open—
pull trees out of dark silhouettes
one needle—one leaf—
at a time—

beyond the lake
above the shimmering line of its surface
branches filter flickering sunlight—
& I try to describe them
in two dimensions

—as if I could capture their gestures

in symbolic language
ink on paper—

I block out shapes—
wash in the blue-green
blue-violet
of water and sky—and

as a dream or memory
hesitates
at the cusp of conscious awareness—I

scribble in tentative leaves

emerging
—or fading—

& you’re in the water now,
skipping stones—

as ripples lap
the grassy shore

The page with my poem and Theresa Moore’s art in the book, Call & Response 4: Poets and Artists in Dialogue (Grosse Pointe Congregational Church, 2023).

This is the poem I wrote for Call & Response 4. My last post shares the poem I submitted, to which Carol LaChiusa responded with her beautiful watercolor.

When we met in July, I selected Theresa Moore’s View of Loch Long because of its potential for contemplating that moment of consciousness when we first notice or look at something and our brains work on figuring out what we’re looking at. Normally, throughout the day, our brains excel at that task and do it quickly; but we’ve all experienced times where we struggle to make sense of what we’re seeing. Maybe we’re tired or groggy; maybe there isn’t enough light. A morning setting seemed appropriate.

I also wanted to work in some of the gaps—the gaps in consciousness, gaps in awareness, gaps in time, gaps in language—that to me the linocut evokes. I’m still not used to writing poems as an “assignment,” or for a deadline, so I was rather nervous about this one and shared it with my poetry group. Commenting on the space (or gaps) I was trying to work in through the poem, I told them, “I decided to abuse em-dashes like Emily Dickinson,” although that wasn’t really what she was abusing—er, using them for. And I’m no Emily Dickenson, for sure!

I was floored when Theresa told me at the reading/gallery talk event that I had captured the essence of her work. It was so personally gratifying to hear that. And watching all the artists and poets who had similar things to say (to the extent they said so onstage) was one of the many rich elements of doing this kind of collaborative work. I will underscore that it’s a little bit nerve-wracking for some of us creative folks to put ourselves out there, not just in the usual way we do when we send our work into the world, but as an interpretation of something else someone else made. (I feel a similar way citing scholars in academic work, at least if they’re still alive!) Maybe it’s imposter syndrome to some degree, but I suspect it’s just…normal?