Heart, Lichen, Stone
Hearts Holding On

collaboration by Marjorie Maddox and Karen Elias


This is what they know:
the dip into frigid;
the shadowed shelter of cave;
the beauty of decay at dusk, at dawn;
the tattooed rays of one more orbit
of earth around a sun that says, “Hold on,
hold on, hold on.” And they want to,
and they do, and they will, lingering
a little longer beneath the open branches
of forest, beside the cool stream of hope,
waiting for you, for me, for whoever
stumbles first down the long path
calling their names.





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"Heart, Lichen, Stone" is from Marjorie Maddox's collection Begin with a Question (Paraclete Press 2022).

Both Marjorie Maddox's poem "Heart, Lichen, Stone" and Karen Elias's photograph "Hearts Holding On" appear in their collaborative book Heart Speaks, Is Spoken For (Shanti Arts 2022).

Professor of English and Creative Writing at Lock Haven University, Marjorie Maddox has published 13 collections of poetry—most recently Begin with a Question and Heart Speaks, Is Spoken For, an ekphrastic collaboration with photographer Karen Elias, which contains the collaboration published here. She also has published the story collection What She Was Saying; four children’s/YA books—including Inside Out: Poems on Writing and Reading Poems with Insider Exercises (Finalist International Book Awards), Rules of the Game: Baseball Poems, A Crossing of Zebras: Animal Packs in Poetry; I’m Feeling Blue, Too! (a 2021 NCTE Notable Poetry Book). www.marjoriemaddox.com  

Dr. Karen Elias, who taught college English for 40 years, is an artist/activist, using photography to raise awareness about climate change. Her award-winning work appears in private collections and galleries. In addition to Heart Speaks, Is Spoken For, collaborations with Maddox have appeared in such literary, arts, or medical humanities journals as About Place, Cold Mountain Review, The Ekphrastic Review, The Other Journal, Glint, Ekstasis, and Ars Medica. Elias, also a playwright, has had work chosen by the Climate Change Theatre Action and performed in 8 countries.