A Narrative poem titled A Wintered Heart. The artwork I created goes by the same title.
A Wintered Heart
A heart of winter, a wintered heart,
She lay quiet, the letter torn apart.
Her tears streamed, like rivers to the sea
And she tried to make bargains, and made endless pleas
An age had past, and cold crept in
No smiles, no warmth, and no new life could begin
The fresh dark tears of the next mornings song
Rose up her cheeks and sapped her strength so that she could not go on.
There she lay, no warmth and no light
A mistress of time, without the slightest delight,
Waited, she waited, with her breath deeply bated
But once the cold crept in, her permafrost was fated
An act so unkind had birthed her present dread
And soon, she had sores from her long days in bed
That act of greed, and a lust for glorious stone
Had left her heart broken, now widowed and alone
She sat there all winter, in endless defeat
She lay so still, mice nested at her feet.
And as the spring time came, the sun drew in
And pressed on her face, lighting her skin.
It planted a seed below her dread,
And as the sun shone that morning, she swung out of bed
Her pain, had nested rot in her heart
And she could not bear the thought of no more love
AND no more art
And so that day, she made her demands
At the canvas she threw red paint and smoked contraband
But from her mess, came a new kind of love
A love of life, hard won, from travels above
Her wintered heart still, held great sway,
But she got a little better with each passing day
And new mediums of art caught her attention,
And she found small victories with her creative affections
So she took one step, and then one more
And one day soon she found herself outside her front door
And found a new canvas to shed her grief,
Though when she spray painted her mural, the cops chased her, called her a liar and thief
Though she had not finished and ran and hide
She planted a new seed on the cities west side,
New murals sprung up in tangent with her own,
And she started a club, and though at first people groaned
About the “grafetti” and the murals, it became a place for many to call home.
And though many of the wealthy had made their gripes
Soon the color that flooded the city brought new life
Community gatherings of collaborative art,
Helped her to get a kind of political start
She found that art brought so much relief
To help people shed the weight of their tragedy and grief
She started centers all over her city
And named them Wintered Heart, to make light of her season long self-pity
For she knew that seeing the signs swinging above
She would always remember her long lost love
And She would honor him with every stroke of a brush
Or spray can, or clay, or charcoal or the burning of sagebrush
Her wintered heart had planted a seed of hope
In place where so many felt at the end of their rope
And they loved her, and taught her a new kind of joy
That’s found in friends hearts, without any romantic ploys
Winteredheart… they chanted her name,
With love and respect and begged her to enter the political game,
Soon after elected mayor she made the city her new project,
Used art, music, theater, and poetry to help them remember self-knowledge and respect
Through her acts, she brought great change,
For the city filled with color and it helped her to rearrange,
The divides and the differences that people perceive
And she taught them that it was, in each other they should believe.
Still her wintered heart held great sway,
For she barely forgot about her lost love for more than a day
Her heart still long for his eyes and his lips
Or to run her hand through his hair with her fingertips
But she smiled, and felt, the joy of all she’d done
Many victories, in her community, she had won
And her heart was frozen but happy at the same time.
For even a Wintered Heart, can find new rhythm and new rhyme.
Loridian's Laboratory 