Poetry of the Art

This poem is what netted me that painting you see to your right; the girl in the mirror with her variously posed reflections. I wrote it about the poem; the painter (who has since become a good friend of mine) liked it, and gave me the painting. He has since painted me, as well, for God knows whatever reason.

Book 5: XXVIII
(For John Stafford, on his painting “Dressing Room”)

The crossroads, Janus
form in the plane of your smile;
He scatters

who does not gather there.
The strawmen meet inside you
trading the slow stares of those

who, long abed, have arisen,
cut the cobwebs from their faces
and departed,

walking, infirm,
on the cold long road to the North.
The sun hangs her garlands,

blue veins of pearl,
recognizing, in the first glimpses of day,
her little ones beginning.

The confusion of the other!
Bewildered, unsettled, insane;
seeing oneself plain

with no glass to intervene.
No shadow to cast, no ribbon
to untie: brilliant and lucid

the sway of the painted faces
as they brush aside the light,
the pieces of the jigsaw

that stubbornly refuse
to be lost. They meet, in the crush
of hay and rags,

leaves in the tempest, bones in the sea,
reunited; touching arms, faces, clothes:
they let the canvas fall from their bodies

standing, nude bundles of lines:
no longer seen or seeing; journeying
away, away, away.