Grace (sample)

After nightfall an anonymous sculptor
and helpers install a statue below a Fairhaven
bluff. As platform, they choose the jagged
tin boulder surrounded by water at high tide.
They balance the statue perfectly on one foot,
and bolt it in to older metal. The artist calls
the statue Grace. She points one arm to sea,
trails the other to meet leg curling up behind her.
Formed of silver bands wrapped around steel
core and heart, she’s untempered and pure.
Grace is silvery fine and fair, and appears
to be a dancer – her stomach is taut, her limbs
long-muscled and lean. A friend tells me Grace
is in a standing bow pose or dancer’s pose.
To me she seems prepared to leap or soar.
While Grace is lithe and limber, she is caressed
by salt water and air, and her carbon steel
is in certain decline. When the sculptor returns
and takes her from us, he will leave this artistry:
however we choose to picture or embody grace –
in repose, or as a dancer prepared to soar or
leap, reclining, or as an elder walking with
quiet dignity – we rediscover grace. Grace
resides in us, and remains available always.

Andrew Shattuck McBride
2012 Merit Award Winner
Sue C. Boynton Poetry Contest

I am very grateful to the Sue C. Boynton Poetry Contest 2012 judges, and to the committee members of the Sue C. Boynton Poetry Contest for all the great work they do year after year. Thank you!