Bathsheba – New Poem

Pleased to share a new “Doug Hoekstra writing” titled “Bathsheba,” live at Canopic Jar. It starts with a painting, but as you’ll find out, goes somewhere else altogether. Enjoy.

The Jar is part of Canopic Publishing, an imprint formerly based in Nashville, now operating in Woodstock, Illinois, where Tennessee native and poet Phil Rice keeps the words going, from a massive desk in a humble abode not far from where both Orson Welles and Bill Murray once roamed. Lots of great writers up on the site, spend a moment and check ‘em out. Thanks again for taking the time

Bathsheba

Bathsheba, Bathsheba, at the Louvre
one warm, the other cold, carrying
moods and soft perspectives,
emotions etched deep
in the eyes and body language
like all the women of the world,
I looked into the past and noticed

a man standing at the Rembrandt,
examining the light, spaces in between,
brush strokes and paint from the palette
moving sorrowful time
across the canvas and the continent,
centuries in circles, never lines
behind me footsteps echoed on the tile

lonely in a way, I wondered
if I had ever looked at anything that closely
listening so intently to the one
in the shadows, presence, holding
the essence of a moment to be shared
only at that moment, fully in that moment
never to be shared again