Special Feature- BLAZE: Paintings & Poems
Peggy Shumaker and Kes Woodward
Alaska painter Kesler Woodward has lived on the banks of the Chena River, about a quarter mile upstream from poet Peggy Shumaker. Over time, they have shared their work with each other and this collaboration emerged. Blaze brings together Woodward’s birch portraits and forest close-ups and Shumaker’s poems.
PEGGY SHUMAKER
Peggy Shumaker was the Rasmuson Foundation Distinguished Artist for 2014. She served as Alaska State Writer Laureate from 2010–2012. She is the author of seven books of poetry and a lyrical memoir, and was awarded a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. Professor Emerita at University of Alaska Fairbanks, she teaches in the Rainier Writing Workshop MFA at Pacific Lutheran University. She is an Alaska Quarterly Review contributing editor.
KES WOODWARD
Kes Woodward received the first Alaska Governor’s Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Arts in 2004, and he was named Alaska’s Rasmuson Foundation Distinguished Artist in 2012. His artwork is represented in all of Alaska’s major public art collections and in museum, corporate, and private collections on both coasts of the United States. He retired from teaching at the University of Alaska Fairbanks in 2000 as Professor of Art Emeritus, in order to work in his studio full time.
AFTER LONG DROUGHT by Peggy Shumaker
Over Panguitch Lake
turkey buzzards spiral
between rays of rain
that fall
but fail
to reach earth.
On parched juniper each drop
ticks, one moment aware
of all those gone by.
Still desert air, then the torrent
darkening
sandstone and shale.
Your lips on my shoulder,
rain in the desert, rain
after long drought.
AUTUMN by Peggy Shumaker
Higher than sandhill cranes
turned south, we fly
one last time this season
north. Wayward breezes
lift us. Outlined yellow
each creek, each draw.
Dryer hillsides
brush ruddy tundra.
Beyond the Yukon,
past the tors
no storm has scoured away,
the sky turns
gray angora.
We bank and soar
back toward home
skim down on the float pond
alive with marvels we’ve been given
to see, suffused with grace.
Hard frost tonight –
the world
changes its mind.
WINTER by Peggy Shumaker
Hip deep in heaped snow
birches sway.
By their example, we know
the alpenglow will one day rise,
the sun limping now
will lift itself higher
and stay a little longer.
Sun on the birches’
broken places, sun
on wounds, on scars . . .
Winter sun showing us
our shadows
contain colors
we barely dream of . . .
And what do birches dream
when they dream of spring?
SPRING by Peggy Shumaker
Botticelli never pictured
breakup boots, black ice,
red pickup
hauled back up
the bank after falling through.
A few days’ sun.
All on one
day, the leaves. Open,
open and open.
Marbled gold
pollen floats.
Every year
since it was a river, this.
Upstream an ice dam
groans, screams,
scrapes. Gives.
Whole new breakup –
huge floes blunder
downriver, gouge up
whole trees. Gossamer
river – crushed ice
shushes, slushes,
three days
floating by.
SUMMER by Peggy Shumaker
No need to leave the light on,
just open one eye
and the world enters
you, sprawled atop
clean sheets, your torso
shadowed
by mine.
Sunlight all day, all night,
so when we wake,
no way to tell
whether anyone else
exists or whether this
new day, if it is day,
means for us to rise.
Touched, our bodies
blaze awake, dawn
on us, shine.
Tongues trace
rivers of light
surging inside
us, outside of time.
CHENA NIGHT by Peggy Shumaker
The cow moose with twin calves
swims our river, rises dripping
in the scant dark of August.
They crop broccoli
ground level, take one bite
of each cabbage.
Rhubarb they leave,
and zucchini. Nightshade
leaves survive.
Before dawn, the river
covers their tracks.
Wherever they brush the trees,
leaves turn gold.