My Quickening

©02-01-21, Olan L. Smith

I awake enclosed,

And I curl desiring to hide,

My thoughts crack my casing

And I emerge flowing forth

Ready to quicken.

I'm the faces of existence:

Graciousness—

Weariness—

Studiousness—

They are a few of my guises—

I'm birth, resurgence, and I'm death,

All those things anticipated, all

Subsequent my arrival in an

Alien world, hidden yet familiar.

I walk in a fantasy-scape of Salvador Dali.

(A.N. these thoughts were in my book-of-notes from the late 1970s to the mid-1980s, and I've combined them to create this poem, "The Quickening" The three paintings, top a interpretation of the Melting Clock, the second is a freehand digital painting of Dali, and the third is my portrait of Dali on canvas.)