A Paper Lantern on the River

During the past year I learned to incant Leonardo da Vinci’s maxim that “a piece of art is never finished, only abandoned.” It’s a whisper behind the left ear, while I hold the printed final draft, until I utter it out loud under my breath. The thing, the piece, the carved and shaved shape has bones or it does not. It will stand, or it will not. I know when I am done with it. I know when I have worked the vein for what it will pay, and when it’s time to launch it or leave it.

To submit a piece, to the blind dark and elements, is to launch a paper lantern bearing a flickering candle into the current of a swollen river and watch it swirl, guttering, away. I am amazed if the lantern floats far enough to find someone to take it up downstream.

I am very pleased to have one wayward vessel selected by Cutbank Literary Journal to be recognized as a runner up in their Big Sky, Small Prose contest. Thank you to the team at the University of Montana, Editor-in-Chief Bryn Agnew, and contest judge Zach VandeZande for recovering “A Posture of Grace” from the open water.

Author: Kim K. McCrea

Kim K. McCrea earned her BA in English before embarking on a career in technology and public service. Kim won Oregon Writers Colony 2018 essay award, Treefort’s 2017 Wild West Writing Prize, and was named runner-up in Cutbank 2018 Big Sky/Small Prose contest. Her creative nonfiction is featured in Cutbank, Tishman Review, Cagibi, and elsewhere; she is the author of the novel Pandora's Last Gift. A native of the Pacific Northwest, Kim lives in Oregon, where she studies the moon and stars and wanders with her Labrador in the rain. View all posts by Kim K. McCrea