Rodney Jones
My father is helping the Ledoux sisters
move their old refrigerator
into the basement when they buy the new one.
The dolly hasn't been touched for years,
but it still has grease in the wheel bearings
and makes a mollifying squeak
as he bumps across the threshold
from the kitchen to the parlor.
He moves delicately to keep the balance,
avoiding the soft places in the floor,
and as he moves, those Ledouxs tsk
and fuss about what to fix for supper.
He thinks now on hot afternoons
as they cool off in the basement
they won't have to climb the stairs
to freshen two glasses with iced tea.
He is happy they have patched things up
after decades of not speaking.
Nina Totenberg is talking on public radio.
Pea their green parakeet is singing.
At the stairs he loosens the straps,
takes the refrigerator off the dolly,
lays it on a quilt and edges it slowly.
It is a kind day, breezy and mildly warm.
My father is not jousting or scaling a battlement.
He is watching the Ledoux sisters
show off their new refrigerator, its four adjustable
trays, chill drawer, and ice-maker—
and sees himself handsome, a knight, a sir.
Under his overalls' armor, his tie is still knotted.
A Sunday. How clean things are.
When Belle touches the button
on the little spigot on the door
clear water pours into a silver cup.
from the journal THE THREEPENNY REVIEW
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Here I have made a scene where my father helps two old sisters move a refrigerator. It is not a scene drawn from a single day and place, but from the decorum of an entire life, and, as such, I mean it as a love poem

Rodney Jones on "In a Dream of Chivalry"
Detail of an abstract image in black, green, yellow and grey
"Ekphrastic Poetry with Victoria Chang"

"To allow a piece of visual art to infiltrate one’s consciousness, and then create a poem to articulate that embodiment—oftentimes in new language or new perception—can be a powerful and mysterious process. In an ekphrastic correspondence, the poet not only embodies a piece of art but becomes an accessory to the process of making."

via LITHUB
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Cover image of Michele Glazer's book, "fretwork"
What Sparks Poetry:
Rob Schlegel on Michele Glazer's fretwork

"In an explanation of the process the multidisciplinary artist Saul Melman uses in his Anthropocene Series (featured on the cover of fretwork) Glazer writes, 'The artist sets a process in motion, but the materials have the last word.' It's a deeply instructive metaphor for how Glazer allies with language to create poems that feel and sound as though she is tapping into a frequency just beyond herself."
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