Welcome to the August issue of Wild Greens.

In this annual August issue, we come together and create worlds: with memories of loved ones past, new hobbies, shared lingo, references, and allusions. We take inspiration from past contributors to Wild Greens. Ekphrasis comes from the Greek meaning “description”— in English, representing a work of art in another work of art, or turning art into poetry. For our purposes, we mean responding to and reworking writing, artwork, and more from past issues of Wild Greens. Maggie Topel’s digital logo depicts the work of Ekphrasis as a medieval ouroboros (a snake eating its own tail), and that imagery is so vivid in thinking about the transfer of ideas from artist to artist.

Short Stack, a personal essay by K Roberts inspired by Hayley J. Boyle’s watercolor cover “What the hell is going on in here? Eggs?”, reflects on the shared vocabulary and phrases a family creates that holds meaning for them; in this case, a “chocolate chip pancake moment.”

“Just Checking In,” a digital illustration by Melissa Lomax, inspired by Suzy Harris’s poem “In My Other Life,” depicts an alternative life in a cute rustic scene.

Howard Osborne’s poem “The Stare,” imagines a scene involving the ink drawn “Girl” in Irina Tall (Novikova)’s illustration, itself inspired by Robin Brownfield’s mosaics “Medusa” and “Aphrodite,” (a beautiful ouroboros of artistic allusion).

“Follow the Heart,” a song written and performed by Charles Sartorius after Melissa Lomax’s “Stand Strong,” takes inspiration from community activism.

“Portraits in Pencil: Hayley, Maggie, Kathryn, Tim” in pencil by Rebecca Lipperini (me) explores the joy of learning new hobbies as an adult, and is inspired by Govi Snell’s essay “My Friends’ Faces.”

“Daffodils,” a poem by Patricia A. Joslin, after Judith R. Robinson’s “Yellow Flowers,” was written for the poet’s husband.

“The True Dwelling of the Holy,” a short story by William Cass, inspired by Irina Tall’s pen and ink “Remember,” follows an ex-con’s journey to their mother’s headstone, and a kind act of a stranger.

“The Spice of Life,” in watercolor by Hayley J. Boyle, after Kiley Miller’s “Bittersweet,” paints a Moroccan scene.

It’s unusual for me to be on both sides of the issue, both writing and as an art contributor. I’m enjoying it! I hope this issue inspires you to paint something new, write something that means something to you, and contribute to next year’s Ekphrasis issue.

-Rebecca

Short Stack

by K Roberts

after "What the hell is going on in here? Eggs?" by Hayley J. Boyle, Volume 6, Issue ix

I could have ordered the eggs. 

Alternatively, I could have had a strawberry milkshake and a blueberry muffin. A bowl of oatmeal topped with canned peaches and a large cola. A side of toast and six packets of grape jelly.

Any of those choices would have been sweet, but not this sweet. 

I grabbed my water glass and attempted to rinse the taste from my mouth, my tongue, and my teeth.

“Something wrong?” my parents asked.

“It’s—too much,” I burbled between sips. “I knew it would be sweet, but—” 

In front of me on the plate: a stack of two pancakes, and a fork spearing what would have been my second bite. I pushed the breakfast away and squirmed uncomfortably in my chair. 

I wasn’t paying for the meal; I was young, too young to crack a sarcastic joke. That would happen later. In the moment, I was striving to be respectful and polite, to remember the “you are in public” manners I’d been taught. I was searching for an appropriate word to describe my displeasure. “Cloying” wasn’t yet part of my vocabulary.

My intrepid father reached across the table, grabbed the fork, and swallowed the waiting slice.

“That is nasty,” he agreed. 

I’d chosen the dish from the photo in the restaurant menu. Everything about the presentation was enticing. Golden circles slightly browned at the edges, with tiny chocolate dots on the surface. A scattering of chocolate chips along the rim of the plate. Flourishes of whipped cream on top. An observer couldn’t help but think of freshly baked cookies.

I was never a fussy eater. I liked trying new things, and this seemed to be a triple win. I liked pancakes, cream, and chocolate. It wouldn’t be until adulthood that I settled on a predictable, conservative routine for meals when traveling. This morning was a big first step in that direction, to be reinforced some years later by an unfortunate encounter with lobster bisque. (The less said about shellfish out of season, the better.)

What had gone wrong with the pancake recipe? Were the menu’s food stylists deceptive, the way advertising agencies sometimes substitute mashed potatoes for ice cream products, because of hot lighting in a photo studio? Maybe the cook needed more training?

Undeniably, the dish was a mess. The candy had melted into the batter, running through the pancakes in rivulets like syrup. Extra moisture from the candy made the pancakes doughy and undercooked. The topping tasted like imitation cream made from vegetable oil. 

Somehow, I survived. The fact that I’m writing this today is proof I didn’t starve, but I don’t recall how I got breakfast that morning. We were on a road trip and wouldn’t have stayed for a replacement order. Maybe I did get a blueberry muffin to go. 

Our family immortalized the mistake, as families will do. Years afterward, when a situation didn’t go as expected or planned, we would say it was a chocolate-chip pancake moment. That became our personal shorthand for a trifecta of emotions: disappointment accompanied by surprise and dismay. 

I imagine every intimate group creates a shared lexicon like this, a collection of in-jokes and catchphrases that elicit instant laughter but are baffling to outsiders. In an odd way, it’s comforting that a mysterious process of transformation exists by which an awkward and awful experience can strengthen an emotional bond.

The Stare

after "Girl" by Irina Tall (Novikova), Volume 3, Issue x, which please note is itself after "Medusa" and "Aphrodite" by Robin Brownfield, Volume 3, Issue v 

Daffodils

after "Yellow Flowers" by Judith R. Robinson, Volume 6, Issue viii

The True Dwelling of the Holy

by William Cass

after "Remember" by Irina Tall, Volume 5, Issue ii

The years after my high school graduation had been pretty regrettable. I got involved in some things I shouldn’t have, did a stint in the federal correctional institution down in Danbury, and wasn’t released until a decade later. While I was incarcerated, my mother died, and my father moved to Florida afterward. He’d let me know at my sentencing that he was disgusted by my poor decisions and wanted nothing to do with me in the future. My mother, however, visited me weekly, and even after she got sick and couldn’t anymore, sent me things she’d knitted like socks and mittens until her death. I only knew anything about their affairs via occasional phone calls with my cousin, Nick, the lone family member or former friend who would stay in touch with me. 

I called him just before my release to see if he could pick me up and let me crash at his place back home in Manchester until I could get on my feet.

He paused on the other end of the line, then said, “Sorry, bro, but no can do. My girlfriend and I are leaving tomorrow morning to visit her folks for a few weeks in Canada, and I already leant out my apartment while we’re gone.”

“Shucks,” I muttered. “And still no openings where you work?”

“Nah.”

“What’s it called again?”

“DiNardo’s Construction. You can try going by and asking yourself when you get out. Yard’s on Harrison, right across the street from your mother’s grave in East Cemetery.”

I felt myself stiffen. Silence followed until I heard myself say, “I thought she’d been cremated. That’s what she’d always said she wanted.”

“Nope. I stood there next to your dad during the internment ceremony seven years ago.” A female voice with an urgent edge called Nick’s name. “Listen, I have to go. Let’s hook up after we’re both in town.”

The line went dead, and I lowered the receiver slowly onto the payphone’s cradle. The image of my mother’s final visit invaded my mind: her weathered face, her eyes downturned at the outside edges, never judgmental, always tender and kind. The inmate in line behind me grunted, startling me from my reverie, so I moved away and somehow made my way back to my cell.

*

Late that next Sunday afternoon, I stepped off the bus at Union Station in Hartford into November’s gloom, got a cab at the taxi stand, and gave the address I’d looked up in Manchester to the driver. He was fiftyish, a big man with a wild thatch of unruly salt-and-pepper hair and a bushy mustache who spoke with a thick Eastern European accent. I tried to ignore the way his eyes seemed to study me in the rearview mirror. We got on I-84, crossed the Connecticut River, then drove in silence while the drab, blue-collar vestiges of my youth rushed past outside: the Pratt & Whitney plant off in the distance where my father had spent his draftsman’s career, East Catholic High School as we entered Manchester where I’d been frequently suspended, the probate court on the hill above Main Street where my mother had been a clerk, and finally the last stretch onto Harrison bordering the cemetery, empty and still in the gloaming.

The driver slowed to the curb beside the construction yard, which stood silent and dark. He frowned into the rearview, motioned with his chin, and said, “All closed up, no?”

“Yeah, it’s fine.” I opened my door, leaving my bag on the seat. “Can you wait here? I shouldn’t be long.”

I felt his frown follow me as I crossed the street into the cemetery and started across the grass, already gone full-brown. I turned up my coat’s collar against the chill and began searching headstones. It didn’t take long to find my mother’s. It was only a half-dozen yards from the curb, facing the construction yard. Plain, gray granite, at a slight tilt. I could only make out her name, dates of birth and death, and the word “Loving” before the moss covering its lower half obscured the remainder of the inscription. I swallowed over a hardness that seized my throat, resisted the heat behind my eyes, fell to my knees, and began furiously scratching at the moss.

It wasn’t more than a minute or so before I was aware of the driver kneeling at my side and halted my frantic movements. He held a bottle of window cleaner and a blue cloth in one hand, which he set down between us, and reached into his pants pocket with the other. He took out a pocketknife, unclasped its largest blade, and started scraping away at the moss. A cold breeze rustled his hair, and he worked steadily without so much as glancing my way or saying a word. The moss fell off in large clumps, and I followed his progress with my fingertips, brushing off dirt and remaining detritus. It only took another couple of minutes for the headstone to be cleared, then he squirted the exposed area with the bottle and wiped off the residue with his cloth. 

“For my windshield,” he mumbled. “But should do.”

A moment later, the bottom portion of the headstone was clean, and I could read the rest of the inscription, which said: “Wife and Mother.” 

I squeezed my eyes shut and began to weep. My shoulders heaved with it until I felt the driver’s palm fall very gently on one and heard him say, “I wait in cab. Is no hurry. Take your time.”

I was vaguely aware of his footsteps going off across the grass, but not of much else. My mother had often laid her hand like that on my shoulder when I was small and troubled, frightened, contrite, or uncertain about things. At that moment, I was all of those in spades, and it would have been impossible to feel more grateful for the goodness of his gesture or the comfort of his touch.