Ekphrastic Challenge, March 2017: Artist’s Choice
Image: “La Familia” by Lisa Ortega. “Chanclas, Find Our Ground” was written by Gloria Amescua for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, March 2017, and selected as the Artist’s Choice.
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CHANCLAS, FIND OUR GROUND
here in an unfamiliar universe
of beginnings, spattered into being
is essence, la familia:
el papá, carrying
la niña as he carried her in his
heart-womb for nine months,
she—awash in internal waves,
salt-floating until arrival, ancestral
song woven into her body
from his and her mamá’s whose
belly-strong wings have given her flight
into the unfathomed, whose
flower-milk breasts nourish,
and her sister, in shawl-sheltered
comfort, whose cells keep
multiplying love—all unwavering
survivors, nameless faces,
amid the turbulence of politics
that can cut them apart like
paper dolls and send them
stumbling onto separate paths.
—Ekphrastic Challenge, March 2017
Artist’s Choice
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Comment from the artist, Lisa Ortega, on this selection: “Tenderness and a delightful choice of words permeate her writing. She was able to capture a unique yet universal story through vivid metaphors. I truly enjoyed reading it, even aloud, for it has a certain cadence that I found equally pleasing.”
