Williams & Hannah – May 2022

Lela Hannah and Beth Schabb Williams traded art and words. Beth shared this image, titled “Surveillance,” with Lela:

In response, Lela wrote this poem:

Brain Screech in B#

A water-bending horse 
with infinite names,

            Luz, Shadow, 
            Blazer, Ash,

teaches me to finetune the firestorm in my veins
rebirthed

river legs        snaking 
into my ears 
and out of 
                my 
                      gaping mouth

where I tried to hoard time, now 
I flick decades off my tongue, 

sea piercing my lungs, 
cilia dancing, 
baritones blooming in my irises,
no longer
                in hibernation. 

I could be a shark
but I choose to float 
on my back, drink the rip currents, 

swallow the moon, 
bury mania in the trenches 
set the sea ablaze,
slumber under the ash. 

* * * * * *

Lela shared this poem with Beth:

A Restless Person Attempts Meditation

Deep

thickets of crickets in
the part of my brain where serotonin should be,

breath

is sucked in when my chest rises or is it when it falls or does it
house a beehive –

in

the event of an emergency, my mouth is the nearest exit.

Don’t 

you want to use this quiet time to figure out 
why we are all doomed and

overthink

everything?

Don’t 

forget to eat the honey
from my heart and

breathe.

In response, Beth made this image, titled “Be”: