Katie Hartsock
Magnificat
"Yeah, let's go to the Mary field,"
my younger son replies
when I suggest a walk in the prairie field,
and he's not wrong. It is
the Mary Field, the Salve Regina Field,
the Hail and Farewell Field,
the Our Lady of Prescribed Burns
and Oak Openings Field,
of Winter Ground Scattered with Leaves
Like Dust on the Top of Spice
Lids Field. When I walk with them here,
things feel felt again.
A sun dog trebles clouds, then rolls
away. Liza Minnelli
tells maybe the best bathroom story:
at a restaurant with her mother,
recognized by a weepy drunk
repeating, "Don't forget
the rainbow, Judy, always remember
the rainbow"—at the sink
until Garland lost her patience: "How
could I forget the rainbow,
I've got rainbows coming out of my ass!"
And so she did, Lady
of Happy Little Bluebird Questions.
There's a wind advisory
today, there's a vulture circling the most
elegantly I've ever
seen one surveil, and instead of the Huron
we head back to the car, to ginger
biscuits and dried apricots.
Almost set, when we hear it:
the whale song of a train whistle.
No sound could make us stomp
boots back on faster, forgetting mittens,
and run towards the tracks.
Boxcars, hoppers, gondolas, tankers:
they certify each flat.
The enchantment lasts until it won't;
riding home, my older boy
keeps retelling, drawing out
its sweep. He shakes his head
a little dreamily: Who ever saw
a freight train like that—
Xanthus
For T
So much yellow, she says, does something to
perception: yellow beneath our boots, yellow
lamp-posted down the sky's long avenues,
unbottled from our scarves above the crows
like corks next to the river, their half-laughs
reflecting yellow rafts or sunken freighters
of leaves, such cargo yellowing the eelgrass.
Walking this trail, this ridge, this world, we wait
for nothing. Nothing can inhuman us.
Achilles ran his chariot with immortal
horses who could weep and talk, and Xanthus,
whose name might mean yellow, like olive oil
or sunlight, sensed that hard young man's easy love
for Patroclus, how time with him was yellow.
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| Anna Lee Hafer is a studio artist based in the Philadelphia area whose work is heavily influenced by such famous surrealist painters as René Magritte, Salvador Dali, and Pablo Picasso, all of whom strove to build their own realities through small glimpses into a particularly confusing, but utterly unique worldview that dictates its own specific set of instructions. With references to the laws and physics of Alice's Wonderland, the artist challenges the audience's inherent understanding of perspective, reality, and universal order.
In her work, Hafer pours and layers paint to create dimension and texture, mixing different styles and colors onto each other until they produce a 3D effect. Through marker and pencil that create shadow, she further enhances these forms and separates them from the background. Heavier layers and thicker brushstrokes in the foreground of her work push the painting toward the viewer, whereas the thinner layers and small brushstrokes in the background, elongate the space and push away from the viewer. By juxtaposing interior and exterior elements, Hafer makes the audience question whether they are looking at something inside or outside.
For additional information, please visit www.hafer.work.
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