VIGILANCE by Cheryl Caesar

Cheryl Caesar: The Voting Rights issue made me reflect on our constant need for vigilance. I did a charcoal sketch which, for me, illustrates that need and put it through a Lunapic filter.

From childhood, I have been fascinated by turtles and tortoises, whose bodies make for them a refuge. Recently I had a dream that left me thinking, “I am a tortoise with eyes in my shell.” I interpreted this to mean that even though Trump is out of office, I need to stay vigilant against assaults on democracy, like the current Republican attack on voting rights. 

I tried to draw this dream image, but it didn’t work. The hard keratin of the carapace would not accept the soft and mobile eyes. So I tried putting two extra pairs of eyes in the dark space where the tortoise retracts his head. I first thought that the tortoise himself had three sets of eyes, but my husband said, “Who’s in there with him?” So perhaps the tortoise has invited two others into his safe space, to watch with him. I leave it to the viewer to decide. 

Cheryl Caesar lived in Paris, Tuscany and Sligo for 25 years; she earned her doctorate in comparative literature at the Sorbonne. She teaches writing at Michigan State University. She publishes poems in America, Europe and Africa. Her bookFlatman: Poems of Protest in the Trump Era, is available from Amazon. Her poems and artwork appear in the recent anthology Words across the Water, published by Fractal Edge Press.Back to Main Page