Thursday, November 7, 2024

Bathers By A River (Henri Matisse), Sonnet #626


 








Can only the human think abstractly?

We do not perceive things exactly

As they are, but as we want them to be,

And often render the senses free

Of a connection with the universe,

As if meaning’s impossibly perverse.

A bather steps in an inky river

Where no light shimmers and snakes slither.

These movements set like Toltec stone

Without muscle, sinew, skin, blood, or bone,

Exist nowhere but on canvas, gesso

(Not even in the artist’s mind, but mine

And those willing to look inside a sign),

With no relationship to what is so.

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