Image: “Terry’s Keys” by Kim Beckham. “What You Thought You Lost” was written by Wendy Videlock for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, June 2024, and selected as the Editor’s Choice.
What you thought you lost along the way
hangs in the air like a prayer
May you find your way home
may the doors swing open wide
from the out and the in
side
under a wide open sky
May you lose
may you find,
may you know
in the core
of your weathered soul your old
and your new sign
May every stranger on the path
become the one who
stopped
to hang something you thought
you lost in the air
by a thread like an ancient
pagan prayer
like some kind of
elder
warm-eyed
guardian was standing there.