Dogwood (a quadrille)

A summer blizzard cloud
of feathers from a pillow fight,
understated blossom clusters
shimmering in sunlight hide
hard timber once carved into
the cross on which Christ was crucified.
Until its grey bark bursts into red,
dogwood crouches in hedges,
creeps around woodland edges.

Kim M. Russell, 16th July 2024

Alma Thomas, Arboretum Presents White Dogwood, (1972), acrylic on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum

This Tuesday, Melissa is our host for Poetics at the dVerse Poets Pub, with a colourful poetry prompt. Today, we are focusing on the art of Alma Thomas, an African American teacher and artist, known for her abstract paintings.

Melissa has given us interesting background to this amazing artist, who was the first graduate of Howard University’s fine arts program and one of the first women in America to obtain a bachelor’s degree in fine art. She was also the first Black woman to have her own exhibit in the Whitney Museum of American Art.

I really like the vibrant colour and rhythmic pattern in Thomas’s paintings and was hard pressed to choose one to inspire an ekphrastic poem. In the end it was the one with the least colour, ‘Arboretum Presents White Dogwood’.

35 thoughts on “Dogwood (a quadrille)”

  2. I love the whole thing!

    “understated blossom clusters
    shimmering in sunlight hide
    hard timber once carved into
    the cross on which Christ was crucified.
    Until its grey bark bursts into red,”

    Beauty somewhere to be found in all things, even the most awful.

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    1. Thank you, Grace. The cross is part of the mythology behind the dogwood. If you look closely at the painting, it is made up of lots of cross-like shapes.

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  9. A new one on me Kim – I do know the shrubby dogwoods are planted for their red bark – an excellent take on this intriguing painting…

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  13. Tightly woven, Kim, with fine use of striking imagery and rhyme, too. I’d heard that legend about the cross being made of dogwood, though sources say it’s not historically accurate since apparently flowering dogwoods aren’t native to Israel. It’s still an interesting story/legend and the blossoms are beautiful (which I enjoyed recently on a trip to Georgia, USA). Beautiful Q~

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