I’m thrilled to be shortlisted in this ekphrastic challenge! Here is Kym Barrett’s luminous image, and my poem which responded to it.

https://www.qldpoetry.org/qraa-ekphrasis-challenge

Portal

After ‘Gateway’ by Kym Barrett

Right here

at the point where grasses thrust
out of a soil bed’s loamy complexity

where the moods of spring rain wend
their way to leaf and bark and mud

the uncurling extension of what grows
rolling like a cat in sunshine

this green doorway into what can only be
sensed where what is in shadow might

lift its breathing head into the permeability of light
clearing a passage right here

this rustle these blades of joy