On Entering William Edmondson’s Sculpture Yard in Nashville

by Sheree Renee Thomas

There is joy here
see it
in the curve
of a mother’s lip
in the arc
of an angel’s wing
in the trumpet
of a ram’s horn
spiraling into dawn
silver strands of light

hear them
chorals erupt
from earth’s collarbone
hear it
there is joy

Sheree Renee Thomas is a Memphian living in New York. Her short stories and poetry have appeared storySouth, Essence Magazine, Obsidian III, Harpur Palate, Mojo: Conjure Stories, Role Call, Bum Rush the Page: A Def Poetry Jam, and So Long Been Dreaming: Postcolonial Science Fiction and Fantasy. A note on Edmonson: Born around in the Hillsboro Road section of Nashville, Tennessee, William Edmonson (1874-1951), was, in 1937, the first African-American artist to have a one-man exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. Edmondson was a stone carver who worked with a hand-made chisel on limestone block discarded from demolished buildings; inspired, he said, by religious visions, he did not start sculpting until he was about sixty years old.