Posts Tagged ‘painter’
The Geographer
On the painting
by Jan Vermeer, 1669
Under his left hand, the unopened
volume; in his right, the twin-
legged gauge of expanding centres
hovers over a blank parchment
unfurled — translucent wave
where a map will come to be.
To his inward and distracted
gaze these objects, like a shoreline
blur; he speeds through stillness —
Dipped in a dream he leans
like a trader’s prow
away from the known
into encompassing
light from the quartered window
while in the foreground, thick wool
from Turkey or Persia
folds over the table trenches of blue
surging into stunned peaks of light
above spice-coloured borders.
Put away, almost ignored,
the conscripted globe
on the back corner cupboard glows
from darkness like a moon. Near full it sails;
fixed above his forehead
as though to the spire of a plunging mast.
Klee Wyck
For Emily Carr
The stones that eulogise the lilies
where you thrived
are rough unspeakable seeds.
Bride of the painted field,
sister of sea and sky,
loved by the unloveable,
unloved by the one beloved,
you gave yourself to the Haida,
godtrees carving themselves
out of the burnished ground,
saltburnt faces old
and puckered as the young maize
stripped
from its ancient roots.
Now earth contains you
like a silenced tongue a word.
Yet asleep in a tent of sun and rain
the seasons’ girl is again
the trees’ divine interpreter!
Boldly still your spirit brushes
the changing line
flesh of ocean/
bone of land.
Your eloquent silence stuns
and honours us.
The big blue raven praises you,
Klee Wyck,
O Laughing One!
