by Rachel Kerwin & Kathy Karlson.
The gulls hang over the station.
Think of being under a cloud, fastened to it
as in an upside-down bed, and you slowly sleeping.
You could see the land of a painting
to fall into, a bird falling beside you,
an army below or fields of snow,
hands raised up, mouths raised up,
of beautiful girls.
We could be the station, the cloud, the gulls, the girls.
The wind picks up.
Let the wind carry away the day. Let the wind
Carry away the clouds.
(A note on this collaboration by the artists: Our collaborative project began in 2023 when we began sharing studio space as Artists-in-Residence in Greenbelt, MD. As we admired and discussed each other’s work, Kathy noticed that Rachel’s work evoked a feeling that resonated with her poetic themes, spanning her career as both a writer and a painter. Rachel, in turn, was seeking a language to articulate the internal landscapes she captured in her images of the natural world. Together, we embarked on a journey to explore how poetry and visual art could mutually enhance and deepen the emotional experience of the viewer/reader.)