I have a monthly column– FYEye– in Nashville Arts Magazine.

They have given me free reign– or range– to select, photograph, and write about whomever I damn well please as long as they are in Nashville.

My first subject, the beautiful and luminous Merry Anderson, published in January:

In Her Own Words

 

In sailing leaves and talking trees,

turning phrases like locks of hair,

toes parsing the dirt, divining,

she lifts her azure eyes to heaven.

Born Mary, named for that Mary,

a descendant of the same myrrh

brought in adoration to her Son—

(she told me it’s sometimes bitter but sweet when crushed)

 

There, on a bell of a bend and their camper,

before an altar of wind, stone, and timber

Merry and husband

send their two hopes reaching

high on a cherry red swing–

tied to a twin taken at 18.

 

Now and then she pours tumult into a crucible,

And smouldering passion becomes embers

igniting a fire of love anew,

clearing deadwood and hope

Once broken.

 

With an ear for His message

in Spanish or her mother English tongue

She attends that peace that settles within,

 

All the while making merry, her other ear to the ground

listening for whispers from within.

JAN 2017