Poetry Sisters Write Ekphrastic Poems

At least once yearly, we challenge ourselves to write poems to photographs or works of art. I love writing to the shared images and rarely choose my own, but this time, I did.

In early August, I spent time at the National D-Day Memorial and was struck by the replica of the sculpture “Le Monument aux Morts.” The original stands in Trevieres, France. Erected in 1921, it was intended as a memorial to men from the town who died in WWI. In 1944, it was damaged during the battle for Normandy. The town decided not to repair it as a reminder of the damages of war and the fragility of peace.

I chose 6 words from the plaque describing the statue. Those words are: second, history, memory, soil, face, and war. I wrote the first stanza using them in the order I found them and then rearranged them to write this sestina.

Echoes of War

Standing at her feet, I think for a second
of the tragedies of modern history
hiding in our collective memory
we know horrors are buried in the soil
it’s a past we cannot face
yet we’re still a world at war

We are burdened by weapons of war
firearms the leading cause of death in youth, seconds
change lives, scars etched upon their faces
mass shootings not just history
but present on our soil
Columbine, Sandy Hook, Uvalde—names burned in our memory

Their epitaph reads “in memoriam”
we lose in peace and war
on home and foreign soil
our first sons and daughters, our second,
and third, changing family histories
sorrow written on every mourner’s face

On its face
loss becomes a memory
a blip in our history
not a game this tug of war
we have no time to lose, not one second
we must nurture our fertile soil

From this earth, this very soil,
we rise to comfort every weary face
time’s healing touch felt with each passing second
old wounds begin to fade from memory
planting hope in bodies ravaged by war
softening the edges of this cancerous history

Pages turned in the book of human history,
hold lessons learned, deeply buried in the soil
when Earth shook under the weight of war
its narrative shaping humanity’s face
we hold the lost in our memory
honor them each passing second

We make history as we face the future
fragile peace holding on our soil, the memory
of war fading for the briefest of seconds

Poem ©Tricia Stohr-Hunt, 2024. All rights reserved.

You can find the poems shared by my Poetry Sisters at the links below. 

• Tanita Davis
• Mary Lee Hahn
• Sara Lewis Holmes 
• Kelly Ramsdell
• Laura Purdie Salas
• Liz Garton Scanlon

Would you like to try the next challenge? In September, we’re using Wallace Stevens Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird as a model for looking at something in different ways. We might settle on 7 or 4 or 12 ways. Looking deeply and differently are the keys here. Are you with us? Good! You have a month to craft your creation and share it on September 27th in a post and/or on social media with the tag #PoetryPals. We look forward to reading your poems!  

This week, Susan Thomsen of Chicken Spaghetti is hosting Poetry Friday. I hope you'll take some time to check out all the poetic things being shared today. Happy Poetry Friday, friends!