Poster Image
$20
Item#: 2005SYR05
Purchase Details
11x17-inches, printed on heavy weight (100-pound) Hammermill cover paper. We package each print with a piece of chipboard in a clear plastic sleeve.
You also receive…
An information page with photos of the artist and poet, and hand-written comments from each.
Medium- and large-format posters are available by custom order. Contact us for details.
Poem Inspiration Location
Above Long Shadows
poster information
Description
above long shadows
brushing Columbus Circle
a church window shines
Western poetry, to me, can be fabricated but haiku needs to stem from an experience. My haiku are dated, thus the poems become very much like a diary.
This poem was written in early summer at Columbus Circle while I was sitting after a walk. I was struck by the difference between the cathedral's high lit window and the moving shadows made by car headlights. The image conveyed to me the stability of the window versus the motion of the shadows, as well as high versus low and light versus dark. For me, it was a unique moment in time and another addition to my “diary.”
I had several poems to choose from, so I took them downtown, and I was looking at them, and looking around me, and thinking, “What would fit with what I see right now?” This poem, with the line about how the church window shines, reflected how the light was shining that day. It was around three o'clock, and was one of those bright sunny days that are sparse in Syracuse. The light just felt very warm and pure.
As I was walking around, I looked up, and there was the door and the light and the architecture of this one church on the edge of Columbus Circle. And I thought, “This is it! This is beautiful!”
I'm an admirer of churches anyway. When I was little, my parents would take to churches, not to go to a service, but to admire them for their artistic quality. So I've always wanted to see different churches.