EKPHRASIS

The WEGO Health Activist Writer's Month continues today with a prompt to write an ekphrasis inspired by the image I see when I click on flickr.com/explore.


First things first. What the heck's an EKPHRASIS? According to Merriam-Webster: "A literary description of or commentary on a visual work of art." OK, so it's like an art review. I can do that. 

"Anshan steelwork slag tipping" by Frühtau (China)

But I also have to tie it into the purpose of this blog. (Fingers crossed that I get a good image.) I click on the Flickr link and this is the photo I see: 

I don't know about you, but this picture (and the metaphors that so easily spring from it) pretty much sums up my cancer experience. 

I'm minding my own business, traveling along the locomotive that is my life, when I suddenly find my caboose on the edge of a dark mountain that is no longer stable. When the word cancer is uttered, my world crumbles into shards of coal. A surgeon's knife cuts my flesh and hot molten tears spill from deep inside. 

Clearly I'm a train wreck with an engine that's run out of steam.