Judy Wells Poet

Berkeley, CA
jwellspoet@att.net

The Calling: 20th Century Women Artists & Other Poems, 1994

Poems from

The Calling: 20^th Century Women Artists

Frida Kahlo, "Roots," 1943.

TRANSITION:

FRIDA KAHLO SPEAKS

There are days when I am tacked upright

with carpenter’s nails.

I rest my chin on the broken column

of my spine,

and the leather straps of my corset

girdle my breasts.

I have nothing more to say than

see my pain.

But there are days when I unfasten my hair,

place my pillow on the ground,

and lie down on the earth.

I enter a sort of dreaming state

and my broken body unfolds its pain.

It is then that I feel the vines

growing within me, thick as my wrists.

I have no spine,

but only these bending branches,

sprouting their green leaves

whose tendrils are the color of my dress,

red-orange, my blood.

After Frida Kahlo’s The Broken Column, 1944, and Roots, 1943

Frida Kahlo, "Self-Portrait with Braid," 1941.

SEPARATION

Today I will have my hair

done up like a bread basket.

That will please me,

the plaiting of my braids

tighter and tighter

until my scalp tingles with pain.

The bird will start

on my forehead.

Move his wings in upward dance,

and Diego in my third eye will wonder,

what is Frida doing with her hair today?

Once I shaved off my moustache.

He was so angry

I grew it back so it was soft and black.

I have braided red ribbons in my hair.

I have planted yellow and purple flowers,

and insects have gathered in my hair.

I have cut if off to make Diego mad,

and have only saddened myself.

My hair grows, it takes root on my floor,

curls over my yellow chair

as I sit shorn as a Chihuahua

in Diego’s castoff suit.

My hair becomes thick as vines,

It can plait itself through a fence.

Weave its way up walls.

My hair can search for its own water

while I sing myself to sleep.

After Frida Kahlo’s Self-Portrait with Braid, 1941,

and Self-Portrait with Cropped Hair, 1940.

Emily Carr, "Big Raven," 1931.

ATTIC VISION

After Emily Carr’s Self-Portrait, c. 1938.

Emily Carr sleeps alone at night

under a peaked roof

painted by her own hand

with two great totem eagles.

Their fierce wings

protect her imagination

from everyday things

that would eat her alive!

She leaves behind the woman

who shovels coal, shovels snow,

fixes leaky pipes,

and ladles soup

for a horde of boarders

who hate her paintings:

“Imagine putting something

like that up on a wall!”

She hears a flapping within.

Strong dreams,

Strong wings.

The roof moves,

soars off the top of her house

toward a cosmos

swirling with dark green trees

sea wind

and light!

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jwellspoet@att.net