The structured residue of brilliance,
A layering of the lesser or least
Into a visual and mental feast,
Or, gestures, moveless, the dimliest dance —
Paint rules the kingdom it created,
The painter’s invisible intent, fingers
Drawing on experience that lingers,
Slowly diminished, subtly ablated,
Of null paintings seen or contemplated.
(Or call them conscious unconscious singers,
For all music without words is abstract,
The furthest thing from an idea or fact.)
The painter has brushes to think or say.
He motions — his eye makes or takes away.
Thanks to Jeffrey Strayer for posting the Marden painting
and for suggesting two lines of the sonnet.
