quiet bones are remembering

artist spotlight: poetry and artwork inspired by ANCIENT

there is a lingering silver mist across the days; the moon is haloed by an opalescent ring. an eye peers through the woods as i make my way through the paths. all winding, all leading to the bones of myself who quietly hum, who whisper as a guide. there is a remembrance here, spoken through the dream who returns every night. the one where i am led to the cave beneath the river; the one where i am left to slumber until the migration returns north, and the mist is lifted. -raychelanne

this week we are weaving together the wilding and emotionally divulgent artworks of poets hannah beherens and haley direnzo and sculpturist, cara distefano. these pieces excavate such a profound sense of the various landscapes of earth we contain within our bodies: the shadows and the serene. these works remind us to uncover the fossils of what has been forgotten and create anew. to bury the bones of the past to rest so new light may be sewn within ourselves, like roots. we surely wish you are taken on such a journey as you take these works into yourself. if so, please comment your visions on the expedition, within.

CARA DISTEFANO SCULPTURE

BONE MEMORIES
Haley DiRenzo

The cool late September days
when you could make a grave,
a blanket of fresh leaves
damp from the dew on your skin.

We would build in the sand
drawing figures on the concrete driveway.
Hands caked in chalk
skin caked in dirt.
Learning to write your name.
and then mine

as we thought of the bones -
the baby bird fallen from the roof, half feathered,
reptile-like in its bare body.
We watched it struggle to take its final breaths
as the sun fell below the rooftops
then picked it up with our small hands
and buried it beneath
the beam of the streetlight down the road.


SHASTA CASCADE
Hannah Behrens

Driving as high as the road will take me,
I stop just below the glacial valley,
as the sleepy volcano darkens in the twilight.
Under the late September moon,
she is barren of ice.

From her vantage,
she watches another smoky day billow into her valley,
catching the last peek of the sun
with stunning hues of sunset clouds.

Venus appears,
fixing her brightness above the layers of pink horizon. 
In my periphery, the tree line folds into darkness,
making all equal in the beholder's panorama.

The mountain at my back takes the last of the light. 
The craggy granite peak is only reachable to the eye. 
In the resting world, I can only dream
of what this Earth is made of. 
I can only imagine what this valley has seen
along its million-year view.

Tonight, the granite rocks cool quietly
in the evening shadow. 
One by one, visitors head down to their camps, homes, and hotels,
headlights piercing the dark.

lastly, a reminder of our monthly muse writing competition is open for another week; please see our previous newsletter to glimpse the provoking muse artwork by manuela thames and guidelines for the competition.

until next time

Cara DiStefano’s fascination with wooded landscapes has been a constant motif echoing globally throughout her art career. In 2016, she earned her Bachelors degree in Metalwork and Art History from the Memphis College of Art. In 2018, she found herself drawn to the Festiwal Wysokich Temperatur hosted by the Eugeniusz Geppert Academy of Fine Arts in Wrocław, Poland, in 2018. She was selected for their funded Interdisciplinary MFA in English program, completing her studies in winter 2020 but is still active in the Academy's foundry focusing on cast iron. Currently residing in Wrocław, Poland, Cara finds inspiration in the natural world, religious and occult objects, anthropology and actively collects fragments to infuse into her artistic endeavors.

Haley DiRenzo is a writer, poet, and practicing attorney.  She has a Bachelor’s in Philosophy and English Literature from the University of Colorado and a Juris Doctor from the University of Denver.  She currently practices eviction defense and lives with her husband and dog in Superior, Colorado

Hannah Behrens is a poet, freelance writer, and writing coach. She has an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Colorado. She is a native of Boulder, Colorado, and has lived in the Netherlands since 2016. She is the co-leader of Poetry Critique Group Amsterdam.