A Reflective Collaboration

Every other year, Women in the Visual and Literary Arts (WiVLA) hosts a member event, known as a Collaboration. In it, writers and artists team up to create a fresh product that is more than the sum of its parts. This was my third Collaboration since joining WiVLA in 2016. In 2018, I had a difficult time finding a partner and started having flashbacks of Middle School PE class, where I was often the last one chosen for a team. I finally tentatively approached someone who I barely knew. She didn’t yet have a partner and seemed as relieved as I was to form a team. Because we were comfortable with each other, we teamed up again in 2020.

But this year, determined to break out of my comfort zone, I approached a WiVLA member whose poetry had touched me. I was relieved when Celeste agreed to join me. Although I tossed her a couple of curves during our creative journey, I’m proud of where we landed. It is with that pride that I share our final pieces in response to the theme: REFLECTION.

“Exposed,” by Celeste Budwit-Hunter

After the rain, a pond. A tree
attracts the dust of stars.
In universal play, dragonflies
dance to songs of twilight.
Captured, I fall through a portal
Suspended
In vastness—
Back before the beginning.
Before name and form,
Two dimensions become four.
A child dreams of trees.
On the other side,
blue jays call to each other
in the language of now.

Coincidentally, Celeste and I share similar backgrounds. I worked as a technical writer for the better part of 30 years and Celeste currently works at Johnson Space Center as a technical editor for flight operations. If her name seems familiar, it’s because she also authored the ekphrastic response to my Rest Stop image.

Published by mellowdee55

I'm an alternative and traditional photographer living in Houston, Texas. Before stretching my creative wings, I was a content strategist for a software company. During the later part of my tenure there, I learned a lot about the U.S. medical industry when I acted as a patient advocate for my father.

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