Shockingly Incongruous Perfection Growing Against Lynn Wood Hall

Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem

Some blossoms give us guidance.  Some are white

In darkness.  You can see them so they give

Intelligence within the black of night.

They hint at poetry and how to live

In worlds you cannot view your way in, dark

Forbidding truest sight.  The whitening flowers

Have other strengths, too, setting fellow stark

And subtle lovelies opposite of powers

Of evil.  In a cruel atmosphere

These beauties send a jazz, a jasmine scent,

Perfume high holier, a sacred cheer

Against the ignorance of Christians’ tent.

  That blackest canopy is softened by

    The tiny petals fragranced by Christ’s sky.

The photograph below is a portrait and true likeness of the poet.  The scene is in the office of Phillip Whidden as the editor-in-chief of the college’s yearbook, Southern Memories.  That office was to the viewer’s left and under the steps shown. The snap has been colorized by AI at the prompting of Phillip Whidden.