AUGUST
WHITE
by
Cheryl Backes
Thrill
seekers came here.
Surrendering
to a strange land,
Hiking
boots and layered in fleeces far
from
home
White-knuckled
drive up spiraling
switchbacks
in swirling snow.
A
weird experience in August.
Enchanted
and ethereal, forbidding
and
intimidating –
Ready
to fall on you at any time.
“You’ll
fall in love, you will.”
I
had never given much thought.
A
luminous smile, offering a comforting
pat
on my shoulder.
“Nothin
to stress over darling.”
I
shivered with relief,
Stacked
between my chowder and cold
beer
Like
a deck of cards.
Up
the mountain where the sheep
huddled
against one another for acres, I
saw
her dressed as a fairy godmother,
A
celestial white bathed in golden light.
Forces
of nature; good for the soul.
We
feel alive.
Cheryl Backes wrote August White in response to my
invitation to my friends to create poetry from newspaper articles by deleting
or blacking out filler words while leaving some words and phrases untouched,
yet connected poetically.
The source of inspiration for this technique, which I’ve
dubbed “blackout poetry,” Comes from Texas-based poet/writer/illustrator Austin
Kleon. I write about Kleon’s technique here.
Cheryl says she’d be amiss if she didn’t give credit to
the author of the article, Joe Drape of The New York Times. “All of these beautiful
phrases were penned by him,” she says.
Indeed, but Cheryl’s repurposing of Drape’s words has
created a beauty of its own.
Copyright 2014 Cheryl Backes. All Rights Reserved.
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