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Imagine sitting in your favorite coffeehouse,
surrounded by paintings done in a riot of color. A wise friend is sharing a
latte, along with stories from her life that make you smile in recognition.
Subtract the caffeine and you’ve got the experience of reading Celia
Wesle’s Light: Paintings and Poems. Now retired from the State Board of Education, Wesle
has been a teacher, artist, poet, and community activist, as well as a
daughter, wife, mother, friend, and lover. Like Georgia O’Keefe, she
finds sensuality in everyday life. For example, she describes her young
stirrings upon seeing her first naked man, a replica of
Michelangelo’s “David” at Beloit College. A long-term
relationship takes an unexpected twist in “Intimacy,” which
begins with lines such as “his wrist upon my temple/ his finger on my
lip” and “He lowers my back. . . .” With wicked delight,
she reveals that he’s her dentist:
Do I love him? Of course.
How else could I bear
to have him
so close,
his hand in my mouth.
But, it is a secret from him
and
everyone else — except you
and you, and you.
Her subjects are often domestic: ironing a handkerchief in
the era of Kleenex, tending plants, hot pursuit with murder in mind and
flyswatter in hand. She shares driving, swimming, teaching, traveling,
bathing, mending, and painting, as well as coping with the aftermath of
Sept. 11, 2001. Some of the most touching poems are about her parents and
her mother’s decline in a Wisconsin nursing home. Wesle deals with the mortality of her friends and her
own aging process. She observes her hands in “At the End of My
Arms”: “Suddenly now they’re so ugly/ Are these mine?/ I
notice in the mirror/ large scattered brown spots. . . .” In typical
Celia fashion she drenches her best feature in color: “But the nails
are shapely/ I paint them red!”
The overwhelming theme is captured in the title and
the first poem, “Light — My Totem”:
Light coming through jewels
Diamond
brilliance
Reflections from my ruby
That circle of emeralds my mother
gave me
Colored goblets on the window sill
Quartz crystal on my
table.
One hundred watts in all sockets
Sunlight on freshly fallen
snow
Moonlight on the wavy lake.
The poems in the book’s various chapters
— “Blue,” “Red,” “Orange,”
“Green,” and “Brown” — appear on the
appropriate color background. No hint is given, so the reader has the fun
of puzzling out the theme of each section. The interior illustrations,
originally in watercolor, oil, and collage, range from abstracts to
portraits. The book’s production was a team effort. Carol
Manley, Linda Lenzini, and Anita Stienstra, owner of Adonis Designs Press,
helped Wesle create this first “brainchild” award-series
publication, honoring a member’s life work. (The Springfield
writers’ group brainchild — with a small b — was started
in the early ’70s.) The use of a print-on-demand publisher allowed
its members full control over the process. Author and Illinois Times guest poetry
editor Manley’s introduction highlights the themes of light, color,
and Wesle’s ability to live comfortably in her own body with grace
and good humor. Wesle’s previous publications include poems in Cheshire, Friend of Silence, Mosaics I, Mosaics II, All the Women Were Heroes, and Stop the Violence. This
capstone of her career in the arts is beautifully showcased in a
large-format volume to treasure. You won’t leave it in the living
room to impress the neighbors — you’ll have it in your kitchen
to keep you company.
A reception
honoring Wesle and her book will be held at 7 p.m. Monday, June 9, in
Lincoln Library’s Bicentennial Room. If you’ve ordered Light: Paintings and Poems from
www.lulu.com, please bring it for Wesle to sign.
Lola L. Lucas is the
author of At Home in the Park: Loving a
Neighborhood Back to Life, about Springfield
in general and Enos Park in particular. Lucas’ poetry has appeared in
Watermarks, Vintage Visions, Alchemist Review, and Illinois Times.
This article appears in May 8-14, 2008.
