by Mary P. Chatfield
Translation is always about loss as if you were looking through a glass the sight plain enough the tang and the touch missing the skull beneath the word’s skin. Catullus knew this when he described how the great gods came to the wedding feast bearing whole meadows of flowers whole forests of trees but what he lodged in the poem’s throat was the old tale of Ariadne in love carried from her father’s palace Ariadne abandoned wailing her loss into the wild sea wind the story stitched in purple and gold to cover the marriage-bed of Thetis a nymph out of water who would wail soon enough for a warrior son. It is the same with words what seems heart-lifting in the imagining in the doing is flat and stiff or too bright like a body prepared by embalmers the thunderous salt life of it beating only in the mind.
Flower of Unique Colors
by Irene Levitt
Mary P. Chatfield is a lifelong teacher, poet, and philanthropist from Cambridge, MA and Rockport, ME. She has her Masters in English from Harvard and is the loving mother of 7 children and 5 grandchildren.
Irene Levitt has a B.A. in Art from California Lutheran University. She went to graduate school at California State University in Fullerton. The artist has managed to place her art in different galleries in the past. Her work has been placed in Seattle, Los Angeles and New York.
Ignatian Literary Magazine 