The fear of white

I have found there to be voids, like the
times when the stark white of it is blinding
transfixing all attempts at meaningful expression,
mocking my tongue-tied immobility with blank eyes.

A fading memory of grade school reminds me that
figures placed in appropriate order upon paper make sense,
so that is where I begin to break the curse,
to place one or two words, tentative sentences into

the void. But my heart longs for the rush of thought
and the cramping of my fingers as they frantically try to
match the pace of mental discourse around
something glimpsed in passing, a brief transcendent

thought, that should someone happen upon it, they might
feel a catch in their throat or an ache in their gut
and maybe the urge to cry -- Do you know what I mean?
Like when you listen to a particular piece of music, and

it tears your heart from your chest, and leaves you
struggling to breath.

Lesley-Anne Evans
December 2009

Diversity

photography by Claire Evans







The same God; angry, jealous, holy
cracked open bedrock chasms to devour hard-hearted betrayers,
also holds my tears of grief and self-pity
in the palm of his open hand,
delights over me with singing.

The same God; creative genius, humorist
dreamed up aardvark and blue-bottomed baboon,
also considers my heart's response to quail babies
following their mother across my cul-de-sac
in a perfectly straight line.

The same God; mighty, just, compassionate
inspired men and women to leave complacent lives
take up causes of world proportion, like aids, orphans, slavery,
also removes my insecurity, my near-sighted view of life,
anoints my pen.

To God be the glory, forever and ever.

Lesley-Anne Evans
August 2009

Cut

photography by Robert Evans









In the distance striped fields of ochre and green show how
one day, soft topped grasses moved like waves in the wind
and how a passing Massey Ferguson laid them down, unresisting
into rows like palomino manes, subdued and willing to embrace
the sun, heat up, dry out, offer up body and blood
as fodder for ruminations of cattle and poets and
farmers at the Feed and Tack.

Lesley-Anne Evans
August 2009