Whirling

Magpie Tales blog invited people to submit a poem or vignette based on this picture.

Verdun, 1917 by Felix Vallotton

Here’s mine:

The moment never stops, its memory

left breathlessly hanging,

catching witnesses endlessly off-guard

Bewildered in half-sight they hear the blood noise

spatter before an uncertainty of silence,

A chaos of imbalance twists into canvas

Polishing a darkened crimson history

until it shines

A formless mass burnished

They’re raked across the night

unready to fall back thrashing

into dirt.

Richly Evocative