Two nights ago, as I walked at dusk in my front yard by the low brick wall flanked by two Chinese lanterns, my art teacher appeared holding salmon-colored branches he arranged against the brick wall in a zigzag then a triangular shape, reminding me that the larger ones should stand apart. He aligned smaller ones in succession in his free-style ink brush painting. This is the ideal composition, he said. Avoid symmetry and let air flow between the lines, the way a painting breathes with hidden meanings. Suddenly, the nude figure of a young woman emerged to my right, seen from the back. She slightly turned her face and I could see her profile. As night fell, her body glowed like an opaline Lalique sculpture. I woke up thinking that I had to start painting again!
Published in Cider Press Review, Volume 25, Issue 1.
Hedy Habra is a poet, artist and essayist. She is the author of three poetry collections from Press 53, most recently, The Taste of the Earth (2019), Tea in Heliopolis, and Under Brushstrokes. Her story collection, Flying Carpets, won the Arab American Book Award’s Honorable Mention and was Finalist for the Eric Hoffer Award. A twenty one-time nominee for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the net, and recipient of the Nazim Hikmet Award, her multilingual work appears in numerous journals and anthologies.
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