I have been writing responses to visual art for the last few years, which is called ekphrastic writing. The majority of my ekphrastic wrtiting has been poetry, but I have also written a couple of stories. An ekphrastic poem is description of or a response to a work of art using language to translate the visual imagery into words, often reflecting on the image. The following poem was written in response to the following photograph, “River of Light”, captured by photographer Beth Vander Heiden.
In Celebration of Earth’s Resilience
©Gail Lipe 2025
Glowing ribbons of green burst
across the sky, stretching
as far as one can see.
Tall pine trees rise in
collaboration, a celebration
of earth’s wondrous nature.
Stars shining through the ribbon
and below become conduits
showering the earth in lights of
awe and admiration,
a reward for surviving humans.
Humbly the earth, snuggling under
a blanket of snow, breathes in
the accolades and compliments.
On this earth, humans are
ants in a garden,
yet we cause so much change.
Natural, gradual changes we
accelerate – baldcypress trees
becoming ghost trees,
global warming, small earthquakes
caused by fracking.
Changes in ecosystems –
wetlands become developments,
hunting to extinction,
interfering in the balance
of nature.
All while this living ball
continues to sustain us,
breathing and morphing
around us, and for us,
turning our changes into
something new.