Ekphrasis (continued)

Night Descends on the Mountain with Cyanotype by Hannah Skoonberg

Figured I might as well see where this was going, if anywhere~

***

Bare branches, black against a deep blue sky,
claw at the first few stars.
She slumps against a tree trunk and gazes upward,
hands clenched in pockets.
Cold smoke curls in the air,
stolen from her lungs by the night.

Can you hear the crackling of the leaves
as they slink through the brush?
Knife eyes piercing the dim
to find you where you catch your breath—
but now it belongs to the night, doesn't it?—
and vines twine around your arms and legs

Pinned.

Like a butterfly in a case
(but not yet dead and faded)
wings flutter at the glass
as the eyes watch her final spasms.
She cries out into the dark,
but the trees pretend they cannot hear.

***

I think it's hard to continue a poem when you don't know where it was going; the mind leaps in unexpected places. As a result, I don't think this is quite ekphrasis anymore. The print is very peaceful, but this... poem, or whatever it is, isn't.