Convex and Concave (Escher), Sonnet #167

Geckos stick out forked tongues at each other
In their race to the top of rounded stairs,
Where they'll disappear because nothing's there.
Men climb ladders to trumpeters. Mother
Seeks to fill her empty basket with air.
Banners state the geometry of the day.
The man near the dry fountain sleeps his life away;
Because he can't understand a thing, he can't care.
Each window, pillar, arch, and capital,
Each wall, riser and tread, each finial,
Was hauled into place by now-frozen block
And tackle, which the builder left behind
(Should he someday return). Here there's no clock,
Few shadows, no lights, only double bind
Architecture, mind alleys of the blind.

The Last Painting

The brushes kept slipping from his fingers.
Wind-tortured fields of wheat under darkened skies-
every brushstroke a nail.
The season's rustling hurry and the dusk
emotionless crows flap up to multiply
dun the wheat's gold and usurp the storm.
The blackened, infinite blue,
his palette's only suggestion of the primary;
red and yellow are plant and soil,
each decaying at the other's root.
And why the two moons? A starless night will come?
Is one a waning sun? When all else is clear:
grasses sprout darkly along the muddy path
that goes into the field to stop.
Or turns to go where the eye can't see.