Ekphrasis 5: Ian Jones + Amy Watkins
“The Big Blue Church,” by Ian Jones
*
First Dream
There is no figure to relate
to myself, but I am drawn
up the church’s yellow path,
past the mud-colored and disproportioned
tree, over the flat expanse
of coral earth, to stand before
the church’s lowest window.
Square and straight, it is unlike
the others, too close to the foundation
for any but a child
to look through it. I look
through it without bending.
I have become very small,
small as in the first dream
I remember: standing in a tall crowd,
faces lost in darkness over me,
the hood of my winter coat—
the same pale blue as the mountains
in the painting—pulled up around my face.
The dream girl and the girl
I have become stare at each other
through the blurry lowest window
of the blue church. The door
of the church has no handles.
It opens only from the inside.
by Amy Watkins of Rossism
What fun! Your poem captures the picture’s simple and mysterious tone. I love what you see in the picture.