Still Life (Pieter Claesz)

#71

Claesz paints no still life that is not about remorse.
(A double negative, much like any single life.)
Life without movement? We've no other recourse
Than contemplation of arrangements of food and knife.
Dried figs and bread, spilt olives, discolored fruit,
The waste of bounty for the sake of observation:
Grasp and consume images that we can't intuit?
The pie spills out the remains of a life's desecration.
And I do not mean regret, for things undone or done.
That is sin enough, a false darkness that frames us.
(Some nuts remain uncracked and meaty. Try just one.)
No, it is our perfect crime, unknown and blameless.
It is without taste or texture, without color or smell,
Old and faint, a fading song, but alive, a living hell.