In the garden, meeting, 
flowers and vines encircle us. 
Birds in branches, peacocks preen. 
Us enfixed in fabric. 
Movement restricted 
in marked contrast. 

Erik and Frida clasp hands. 
Ode to oud. Rattles rattle seeds. 
In the garden, not resigned to the attics. 

We reign on Tuesday morning. 
No grey—bright colors or forms. 
A feast of senses, an Eden 
in dialogue, avian, Algerian Arabic. 
Who Who, asks the owl as we twitter like 
birds. 

* “Untitled (1987)” is a gouache painting by Baya Mahieddine which resides at the AlSharekh Collection in the United Arab Emirates. It may be viewed online at: Art History Project.

Baya Mahieddine (1931-1998), née Fatima Haddad and now known simply as Baya, was an Algerian painter and ceramics artist, entirely self-taught, whose work has been classified by critics as surrealist, primitive, naive, and modern. (Source: Wikipedia.)

Art History Project also includes six more of her paintings:
https://www.arthistoryproject.com/artists/baya-mahieddine/

For more comprehensive details, including exhibitions, videos, and additional artworks, see the Artist’s page at DAF (Dalloul Art Foundation based in Beirut): https://dafbeirut.org/en/baya

Links were retrieved on 12 September 2024.

Lynne Kemen

lives in Upstate New York with her husband, William Rossow, and their four cats. Her full-length book of poetry, Shoes for Lucy, was published by the SCE Press in 2023. Woodland Arts Editions published her chapbook, More Than a Handful, in 2020. Her work is anthologized in Earthcare (Willet Press, 2022), What We See on Our Journeys (Willet Press, 2021), and Seeing Things (Woodland Arts Editions, 2020); and appears in Blue Mountain Review, Fresh Words, La Presa, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, The RavensPerch, Silver Birch Press, Spillwords, and Topical Poetry.

Lynne is President of the Board of Bright Hill Press and has served on many other not-for-profit boards. She is an Editor and Interviewer for the Blue Mountain Review and a lifetime member of The Southern Collective Experience.

Author’s website: https://lynnekemen.com/