Paula Schulz

Still Life, Spring Flowers

This still life shows flowers in a vase as
white fingerprints and small melon colored
paint smudges pushed into darkness. They hold

the light the way you hold a thought in your mind:
without really holding it. What looks like
an aqua chalk line is a glass vase

holding stems that must be sipping sun along
with water since each stalk wears white-yellow
streaks, and carries this lively current

into the firework of blossoms. That
Morse-code dash of glow at the water line
a warning: this field is electrically

charged. Static sparks like sequins, scatters
and hovers over the painting’s surface. It
gathers among petals which give back the light

that opened them to the joy of their bodies.
The frame’s gilt edge and the bright-quiet
image it holds: this shining moment,

this life,
this beautiful, fragile
now.

© Paula Schulz 2015

Paula Schulz lives and write in Slinger, Wisconsin with her husband, Greg. She has been involved in several ekphrastic projects, taught 3K through college and was recently nominated for a Pushcart Prize.

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3 Responses to Paula Schulz

  1. MarianShapiro says:

    What a beautiful gift to greet the morning with! I love the images: that “Morse-code dash”, that “static sparks like sequins,” the “bright quiet image” – so many long ” I ” sounds – assonance that adds brightness itself. And a fine, elegant ending. Brava!

  2. William Lord says:

    I enjoyed this poem a lot; specifically, I enjoyed the ambiguously modern structure: the way each stanza is a tercet in nearly perfect iambic pentameter which creates the look and feel of a poem, while the use of enjambment disrupts the implied rhythm. And, of course, some lovely images and turns of phrase, particularly “They hold / the light the way you hold a thought in your mind”
    Thanks for the poem.

  3. MaryJo says:

    Beautiful poem, Paula. the turns of phrase that William mentioned are particularly lovely.

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