undersong
i
on a day white sun red finch its barely red vanishing
into the silver veil of morning the earth curving up into day
branches of the black pine defining the dawn
to get inside and outside at the same time (de Koonig)
what I see draws in : white sun / red finch / black pines
all move from the outside to the inside and back again
the artist-I suspended between what can be seen and what is seen
paint / brush line / stroke / shape the words of this poem
in the changingness of light clouds drift time passes sun shifts
steamy morning crosses the field seethes in the simmering white sun
bending light rays produce images of distant objects–a figure
barely a figure emerges an idea in a blur from the forest beyond
where the red bird flew taking shape : a smudge
visible things always hide other visible things (Magritte)
plays of light refractions a man no–a girl
vanishing down the line that becomes a lane
heat shimmer and haze : colors breaking apart planes shades
a medley of pigments create a mirage : what can and cannot be seen
what can be felt what I feel standing here in this morning’s moment
losing sight of the figure vanishing down the lane not a lane
appearances of natural forms change but the realities remain (Mondrian)
what realities remain: my painter’s brush/ my palette of colors
canvas/ easel // my pen / this paper/ my thoughts : what can I know
the world : sun /red finch/a forest of trees // what of who I have been and am
surfaces recede to a multiplicity of planes : figures without form
forms to be decided by the eye/ I that sees shapes shimmer
under each new squint the quick of this invention : some idea some truth :
something invisible making itself seen : who comes and goes //
what realities remain : something there or only in my mind’s eye
ii
the five-year-old girl on the tricycle turning to wave goodbye
the schoolgirl fleeing the mean girls at school
the young woman wild for love and sex on a bayou bank in the moonlight
the first mother chasing the child–a toddler no–a teenager,
no–there she is again : an old woman moving alone
the girl blurs / fades into the dark
I pulse with strange elation : me and not me
not my own truth only but visible things [hiding]
other visible things finding the hidden beneath the visible
iii
I slant details into mirages of expectation : black pine /
silhouettes of unknown birds spattering the new-born sky its grey-blue
the tree its umbers and greens : viridian subdued to pyrelene
branches without leaves breaking up a barely blue world
a wind blowing dark clouds overhead obscuring the sun
that girl that girl : so-called realities : visible things
distorting into abstractions : a confuscation
“reminding us of nothing we have seen” [Matisse]
but perhaps of what we have felt (but not known)
the mind imposes the eye insists on what can be seen
I don’t paint what I see, I paint what I feel [Cezanne]
what image [white sun / red finch] draws me in but they are not
the truth itself : they do not tell the truth / they do not know the truth :
the girl : escaping or lost / fleeing / vanishing
iv
new forms replace old thoughts : not the tree I think I see
not the bird vanishing into the cloud : its story a purple-crimson
dusting of flight like a curtain slowly drawn…half open (Turner)
I will paint / I will write : I am painting / writing but what :
the girl I was or the old woman I am / the room / the tree / the house /
roaddoorwindowtree always the tree its apple plethora of leaves
and the figure vanishing down the lane intent / earnest or afraid //
how to capture the fleeing figure call it call her by name : this foundling
of my inflected past moving / so bright / so full of form / so shadowy and elusive
v
the mind loves the unknown (Turner)
or the mind loves the known / surely / it is the unknown in the known
that haunts us that lures us forward into the rest of our life
or is it the other way round : the not of her scaring me off
the hot of her moving me on looking for what is in what was
what the mother meant / the father : their drunkenness / their brokenness
what the marriage meant that man I loved and kissed
those children we had those homes we left the roads
the lonely nights without friends without each other
then without god : where is the friendly finch / the scented pines
And through the tempest moves a light (Turner)
daylight is inconstant it cannot be trusted wait wait
I’m not ready : too much change / always too much change
or not enough I’ve been here before : this red finch / black pine
forest / path / vanishing girl : realities don’t change but only
the seeing changes and the see-er what I see submits to how I feel
how I feel submits to what I see : destinations vacillate with ways to get there
the mind submits to the spirit of the seen becomes the poem the music
the painting : subliminal real beneath the planes and lines / surfaces and hues
the artist’s eye : a new visible beneath the visible
what can we make of what we have made : all the lines :
tree-limbs / birds / paths // figures emerging / vanishing into shadow-colors :
a new beginning simmer of white suns / bending light distant objects
that shimmer / limbs that reach through air / a red finch
a smudge of a girl–or a man finding a way
it is lines and colors put together so that they say something (O’Keeffe)
like a curtain slowly drawn…. (Turner)
Stone Poetry Quarterly 