River Under the Trees (Gauguin)

#126

On low descending stairs, the river steps
Past pebbles and deadfall, seeking the end.
The trees watch -- silent, impassive adepts --
Unmindful of what lies beyond the bend.
I've tossed the fly a hundred thousand times
This afternoon and have not raised a trout,
Though I see them, shadows beneath the pines,
Elusive as a vaguely recalled doubt.
A pileated woodpecker alights
On a dead tree, plants himself, and, ripping
At an oblong hole, flings wood left and right -- 
All those scrambling ants he is sipping.
I leave the river before he's flown off,
My creel empty, my mind rasped and rough.

Witches' Sabbath (Goya)

#125

The Magus wears a garland of doll's eye,
Leaves, bare of fruit, on his horns -- the berries
Were for the withering of children's fears,
Though too often the tiny babies die.
A terrified young witch mother carries
Her lovechild into a circle of sneers,
Desperate to fondle the Goat's hoof,
In spite of a starveling's left-handed proof.
The witches gather with a wanton will.
Though none has yet to cast a spell with skill,
They believe coupling with the Magician
Will make them charm like a politician.
With moonset, the end of the Sabbath looms -- 
A gibbet of dead babes and gravid wombs.

The Healing of a Madman (Vittore Carpaccio)

#124

A madness in us all is a thwarted desire to see.
A painter cannot see beyond his frame and nor can we.
The Rialto Bridge is closed for now to the taller ships,
And men step gingerly across her pedestrian planks.
The pot-like chimneys equal in number the gathered swells,
Tradesmen and pols awaiting the news, that they may worship.
A miracle will soon be performed and they must give thanks,
Though in such proximity they sweat, and the canal smells.
Above, Querini touches the madman with a splinter
Said to come from the Holy Cross, attempting to enter
The man's darkened mind and let in the soft lights of Venice.
Failing, he kisses the beggar's eyes, an act of penance.
The weeping madman stoops and strokes the glittering vestments.

The Baleful Head (Edward Burne-Jones)

#123

In the apple orchard's clear, octagonal well,
The hero reveals the Gorgon's head to his prize.
He's killed the sea serpent before it ate the nude
Beauty her frightened father had offered to sell
To appease a god angered by arrogant lies.
But why show his bride-to-be what's vicious and lewd?
Medusa made man or woman adulterers.
Enchanted by her shameless, urgent moans,
Her mad green eyes and wild, seductive leers,
Their surging blood turned them to stone.
(They died dreaming of her enchanted caresses,
Not because they abhorred her serpentine tresses.)
Perseus seems eager for her to see the head --
A pledge of fidelity, or to inspire dread?

The Sense of Speed (Dali)

#122

I have seen shadows outrun the sunrise,
Moving faster than the speed of moonlight,
Just as our blinking can outrun our sight,
(Eyelids being the shadows of our eyes).
I have seen the shadows lengthen the day,
Stretch out a minute into two or three,
Or hide an hour like a bird in a tree;
Asleep at dusk, the hour dreams away.
I have seen a shadow's hands on the clock,
Its skull aloof, indifferent to time;
Not so those hands, forcing the clock to chime,
Whipping the tic along faster than toc.
I have seen my shadow run without me,
A fleeing murderer of memory.

Achelous and Hercules (Benton)

#121

For the Victims of the Belvidere Tornado, 4/21/1967

When Hercules tore the horn from the river god
Before the harvest could be washed away,
The cornucopia -- benign tornado -- spilled
Its yield of grain, gourd, and fruit as the cloud
Of Achelous's rage began to twist and sway.
The next day twenty-four farmers were killed.
The funnel's path, cut by the bull's remaining horn,
Left nothing but the uprooted, scattered, and torn.
They say the sun died and the sky turned green,
That the god's roar was a detonation of spleen.
Hercules was never seen in those parts again.
Did he run or was he ground into human grain?
The one-horned bull rages on, rivers overflow.
No hero's left to rip from him the tornado.

Note: The victims of the Belvidere tragedy were not farmers,
but mostly town residents, thirteen of them children; but, 
for the purpose of the poem, which is based on mythology, 
"farmers" was more consistent. Click and hold on the image 
to see Benton's remarkable mural in greater detail.

The Broken Pine (Akseli Gallen-Kallela)/ Broken Oak (Guerin)

#120
I

Am I what I think more than what I see?
An obvious thought and pernicious truth,
It seems; thus, we have made a mess of things.
A broken tree is just a shattered knee.
The logic of zealots, rampaging youth --
The loner's automatic weapon sings.
The smaller trees surround the fallen trunk
Like children appalled by their father drunk.
We teach them to love our wide-eyed blindness,
To rationalize even one's kindness.
The painter's tree is no truer than mine.
We see the same, sad ending of a life.
But all of his splintering is a sign
Of unnatural and murderous strife.


II

If a tree falls in the forest....the old saw goes.
That cliche has become the source of all we know --
The answer being the answer is no answer.
Our consciousness is a kind of benign cancer,
Creating forests by invading their silence;
By dying we wreak universal violence.
Consider the wreckage where each tree broke apart,
The sundering of sinew, the breakage of bone,
The surrendering of structure to mere air, blown,
By what, all in the creation of works of art.
To see, to think, to know, to make, and then unmake.
To discover, to climb and fall, and then to break.
The happiest man revels in uncertainty.
We are the tree-makers or we are the tree.