The color green becomes,
and very briefly, a glowing sound.
A flash of light along with low base clouds
change the night into a desperate warning,
an ominous beauty; the stare of a blue-eyed cat,
a canister of water gulped down at the peak
of the trail, just as warmth inches past
the fern, moss, tendrils of trees. Beyond
the loons at dusk at the lake, is where
we believe the source comes from.
In early morning, I try to chase that sound. It’s
here that I run into the face of you–
a loved one. Insisting with only a look
that I give up on keeping my despair.
𐫱
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hannah villanueva is a Pinay/Boricua artist who was raised in Alaska and now resides in Washington. Her work is primarily in the medium of video poetry and photography. She has been featured in 3rd Thing Press, Cadence Festival, and as a visiting poet at Frye Art Museum.
About the Poem
“The end of summer was a very stark experience. That’s any kind of ending really. I was at a quaint, bright, backyard show. As soon as the music ended, clouds came in and we were stuck in the worst rainstorm in the area of the season. I had so many different feelings that week about change and how it feels to try to grasp its motive. I wrote ‘So Long, So Long” with the nagging feeling there would be more change we would have to inevitably witness and experience. That is the ‘ominous beauty’ I describe. It’s a kind of desperation that I fumble for in the dark. It is very consuming and entrancing at the same time. The writing for this poem changed from uncovering things that feel strange to finding respite from these anxieties.”