Hannah Main-van der Kamp & Tanja Butler

IN THE PORTICO

by Hannah Main-van der Kamp

Sun from an always Sun though
there is plenty of shade
but no fluorescent light.

No fast food for couch potatoes but
roasted herbed potatoes eaten on couches.

No Mall shuffle but circle dancing.
Shopping dystopia replaced by hopping without myopia.

Eye to eye conversation but no little magic screens.
Luddites will appreciate the unwired
instant soul to soul communication

There is no Lost Department
as everything and everyone has been found.

What you wear: mostly loose and flowing;
Petro -textiles not available
but lots of choices in cotton and flax (organic of course).
Uniforms not available.

Not to mention taxes. No Roman taxes,
Not taxes of any kind, nothing taxing.

Every kind of good is elevated but not the prices.
Sales never necessary
in the recycling/sharing warehouse

Everyday a new reunion.
Get this; you get to meet your grandmother’s mother’s mother.
Remember that grumpy elderly neighbour who died and you were relieved?
That’s him waving with a grin.

Entrance is free though to get in
you have to relinquish your life.

Harp skills not required.

******* 

Tanja Butler: New Jerusalem,1989, 22,5 x 30 cm, oil on canvas.

Tanja Butler was born in Germany in 1955 and moved to the United States as a young girl. She studied art history and studio art and received a graduate degree in painting from the University at Albany, New York. She is interested in the intersection of art and worship. Periods of work in Italy shaped her understanding of ways in which visual art can support the ministry of the church. The frescoes by Fra Angelico in the convent of San Marco in Florence were a particularly influential model. She is an Associate Professor of Art at GordonCollege in Wenham, Massachusetts, where she teaches Painting, Printmaking, Illustration, and Liturgical Art. Students in her classes have created artwork for area churches, schools and community organizations. She enjoys finding ways to create collaborative artwork within the context of community. Her work has been displayed in many solo and group exhibitions across the United States.  For more about Tanja Butler and her work, click here and see www.tanjabutler.com. 

Hannah Main – van der Kamp lives in a remote community on the coast of British Columbia.  Her most recent volume of poems, Slow Sunday on the Malaspina Strait, was published by the St Thomas Poetry Series, Toronto, 2012.

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