Charlene James-Duguid’s most recent poem to appear here was A Rappahannock Romance (March 2015).

An Artful One
By Charlene James-Duguid

Where did it come from and where was it going?
This nibbling sensation, tingling through her selfness
Each time a star went shooting or a snowflake fell.

The Gordian knotted, knowing
She had something to be freed.
Tumble, juggle, or dance, which should she choose as the sword?

Thinking blue or better yet the blur of blue,
A purple more regal than a
Monarch’s robes.
Imagining the images of her artful self
Compressed, suppressed for decades.

Yearning to emerge like Venus with a
Preternatural sigh
From a look posed before
That step out of the shell.

She chases created angels
Through orchided jungles and Nordic seas.
Her desire known only in the finest, quiet moment.
To see the grandeur of a line,
Or a space between,
That captures more than the shape can tell.

Demanding now a place of her own,
Her solace, brilliant, unnamed colors,
Celtic perfection, fineness of symmetry,
Wild tropical birds feasting on welcoming flowers,
Splattered in her brain, ready to burst forth,
In full-throated sound, “Today, I began!”