By Sophia Kostanski
Fire paints Pollock lines
’til traces of little life run out.
Red does not hold back instead
it takes
after cranberry juice,
gushes from a fallen glass, it drips,
bloody nose, invades frames,
crossing limits, they say. It’s gone
too far down the Artist’s plane, they say
still in stance. Citrus
lights sizzle plum
shaped fur bellies dry
& other slices of pain
beyond the bubble
transparent window.
Said goodbye
to forms who belonged
to us to protect.
You whisper redo,
redo, re: do
something.
I paint, Van Gogh-like,
until red is cast off.
Room for new
sketches will stay.
Endless
the hours to draw
this fragile life.
Sophia Kostanski is a fourth year student at the University of Toronto, specializing in English. Her poem “A Crisis Visual” begins with a fire engulfing “fur bellies”, breaking boundaries to claim lives. As global citizens, we have witnessed fires rage and devastate ecosystems and communities in Brazil, Los Angeles, and Australia. The poem works through a human attempt to take action and to repair what seems to be irreparable.
Photo credit: USGS on Unsplash
