Saturday Poetry – ’14 Love Songs’ by Elizabeth Jacobson
Saturday Poetry – ’14 Love Songs’ by Elizabeth Jacobson
This week’s Saturday Poetry brings you the soul-stirring poem titled ’14 Love Songs’ by Elizabeth Jacobson. She is the author of Not into the Blossoms and Not into the Air (Free Verse Editions/Parlor Press, 2019) which won the New Measure Poetry Prize selected by Marianne Boruch. She is the Reviews Editor for Terrain.org and poet laureate of Santa Fe, New Mexico.
For this edition of Saturday Poetry, we have paired Jacobson’s emotive words with mobile art by the talented @krimzenphotography with the captivating artwork untitled complementing the poem’s essence beautifully, creating a symphony of emotions.
To view the others we have published in this section, go here.
via Poets.org
’14 Love Songs’ by Elizabeth Jacobson
Above a pond, I sit on a wooden bench
and throw pebbles into the willows.
A rush of sunlight and wind creates a path in a channel of water, dances
between the melting ice and brown islands of Bulrush.
The resident osprey, its eyes the colour of yellow grass,
follows my tossing hand.
Love is a diorama of inner life in an outer world.
I look down and find a chunk of fossilized rock
with an entire Paleozoic shell sticking out.
I am not afraid of love, but terrified of how it is my steady guide.
Once, when tired, I wandered off the trail and crawled under a tree to rest.
I woke to a young brown bear licking my boot.
Nothing had ever felt that good.
When I say I love you, what I mean is I wouldn’t leave you.
Even if love is not loved back it doesn’t go away,
although it may become a black hole.
Could this be what it’s like for trees to lose the green from their leaves?
At noon the light shifts and the pond turns
into a mosaic of opaque green ice.
Orange carp rise in these cold watery chambers to breathe at the surface.
Always I am in love. Face to face with the sun. Face to face with the moon.
Please support us
TheAppWhisperer has always had a dual mission: to promote the most talented mobile artists of the day and to support ambitious, inquisitive viewers the world over. As the years pass TheAppWhisperer has gained readers and viewers and found new venues for that exchange.
All this work thrives with the support of our community.
Please consider donating to TheAppWhisperer as this New Year commences because your support helps protect our independence and we can keep delivering the promotion of mobile artists that’s open for everyone around the world. Every contribution, however big or small, is so valuable for our future.
Joanne Carter
Joanne Carter is a British photography journalist, editor, curator, and the founder of *TheAppWhisperer.com*, one of the world’s leading platforms dedicated to mobile photography and art. Since its launch in 2009, TheAppWhisperer has become an international hub for artists of all levels to discover, learn, exhibit, and engage with contemporary photographic practice.Built on principles of inclusivity, accessibility, and artistic excellence, Joanne has spent almost two decades championing mobile photography as a serious artistic medium. Through interviews, critical essays, exhibitions, competitions, and education, she has helped shape and document the evolution of mobile art on a global scale.Her work has taken her internationally, lecturing on photography and mobile art at institutions and events including the Museum of Art in Seoul, South Korea, alongside appearances in the UK and Europe. She has served as a juror for international photography and mobile art awards across Portugal, Canada, the United States, South Korea, Italy, and the UK.Joanne is also the founder of *TheAppWhispererPrintSales.com*, one of the first online galleries dedicated exclusively to collectible mobile art, connecting artists with collectors across Europe, the United States, and Asia.Before founding TheAppWhisperer, Joanne worked extensively in print journalism and photographic publishing, including roles at a paparazzi photo agency and as deputy editor of a leading photography magazine. Her freelance journalism, criticism, and commentary have been published widely in both the UK and the US, with bylines in *The Times*, *The Sunday Times*, *The Guardian*, *Popular Photography*, *NikonPro*, *DPReview*, *Which?*, *Vogue Italia*, *LensCulture*, the *BBC*, and more recently, the *Financial Times*, where her published letters on photography continue to contribute to wider conversations around the medium.Alongside her editorial and curatorial work, Joanne’s own photographic practice has been exhibited internationally across the UK, Europe, South Korea, and the United States. Her work increasingly explores themes of grief, loss, death, memory, and the body.Her current research interests centre on grief, death, and poverty, with forthcoming postgraduate study leading towards doctoral research in these areas.Joanne is currently developing new long-form writing and photographic projects and is available for commissions, editorial projects, speaking engagements, and collaborations.Contact: joannetheappwhisperer@gmail.com)
