Dear Readers and Lovers of Poetry,

Thank you for your submissions to our last Invite to Write in which we explored the world of Bruegel's The Census at Bethelehem.  We have chosen some for you to read here.  Whether you read it, write it, or love to hear it, I hope poetry comes alive to all of you through the Poetry Portal.  I feel it is an important service and duty to present what poetry is meant to be, that it be heard and read aloud.  In the next few editions for the Poetry Portal, I will be using special themes for our invitations to write new and beloved poems of Ekphrasis.  In this edition, I invite you all to write upon a Star and to hear the poem by the same name by Nobel Laureate Derek Walcott.

 
"Star", by Derek Walcott (5:21 am)

If, in the light of things, you fade
real, yet wanly withdrawn
to our determined and appropriate
distance, like the moon left on
all night among the leaves, may
you invisibly delight this house;
O star, doubly compassionate, who came
too soon for twilight, too late
for dawn, may your pale flame
direct the worst in us
through chaos
with the passion of
plain day.

Please send your poems inspired by Karen Arm's painting of stars to poetry@aras.org by July 15th.