Art Inspired By Art 2: Artists Around the Internet Inspired by Betsie Withey, Textile Artist

Continuing yesterday’s post with more Art inspired by Betsie Withey’s Art . . .

Witch’s Gift
By Livia Langley

“This,”
She whispered
As her fingers caressed
My hair, tied
Her velvet-soft soul into it,
“Is the whole of me.
Do with it
Whatever you wish.”
My witch’s smile was
Overflowing with love,
And as honey and moonlight
Dripped from it,
Nectarine-tasting tears
Slipped from mine as I
Pressed my velvet-soft lips to hers.
What would I have done
If she had not accepted them?
Much as my heart wanted to leap
Out of my ribs, my tender flesh,
And into her throat,
I could not give her my heart, my soul in the same way
Without tearing, crushing, burning, and breaking hers
In the process.
But,
It never came to that.
It never will come to that.

ONE PURPLE PETAL

By Fran Wilde
Author of Updraft, Cloudbound, and Horizon

In my dream I have a gown
of thistles and moss lit by fireflies.
The hem swooshes a wooded path
as bats swoop the gloaming.

My shoes are felt and berry-bound
they mar no ground, they break no quiet.

And in my hair, flowers ring the seasons’ changes as I circle the earth once, thrice, fifty times, more. In my dream, my gown wears thin

and I patch it with spider’s webs
and morning mist.

In my dream I keep walking, my felt shoes spare,
my feet hardening to earth.
But the fireflies linger and dance
and the flowers go to seed
and when I reach the place where I meant to go?
My gown trails winter with it, and the mist swirls
And one purple petal falls to the snow.