Vol 1 No 1 2007
“Musée des Beaux Arts” further west/later
on
-after
Auden/in Portland/for David
About the dawning sun he was mostly right,
the struggling artist: how well he understood
its morning position; how it fills and then empties
his windows while people downstairs eat their breakfast;
How, when it moves over walls like impossible paint
filmmakers wait with their cameras, extras will need to be told
children watch while dogs are oblivious to its faint
slide over the early river, trees, occasional nests:
He never forgot
it rides the highway, splashing mirrors, side and rearview
before shadows appear, multiplying the delicacy of wires
crossing visible air, confusing and attracting birds who flex their scaly
feet
folding their wings to stop and balance.
With pears, for instance: how it turns table edge into horizon
near and far for a stage, or ice on a frozen pond;
how Bosc skin is dense with it, Bartlett luminescent;
how figs can swallow it whole;
tiny squash pirouette lit while broken eggs
hold bits of sky small in their shells; whole eggs
may be lonely, reflecting pink, pale yellow and grey
celadon, mauve and the complicated white.
Judith Arcana