If I were a poet like JOB, I’d write a poem on the subject, and it would start something like this:
Would Adam have painted in the garden?
Mashed a berry, made a stain
to match the crimson of Eve’s lips?
Trained his hands to shape her hips
in clay made soggy by the rain
and set them in the sun to harden?
UPDATE: And JOB accepts the challenge:
Why I No Longer Paint
That which went to make Mona Lisa’s smile
Flash with such brilliant guile
I could not find even in bed with you.
No such passion would do.
I studied – but possessed to no avail.
When I failed to reach beyond the pale skin
To the darkness within,
The much-desired brushstrokes of your hair
Thickened in the air
And blinded my art with aesthetic sin.
You glittered darkly like a stone curio
In chiaroscuro,
Hard and formal, untouchable image –
A feverish mirage
In the looking glass on your clothes bureau.
Candlelight purled your eyes, each a mirror
To read back my error
Of wounded perspective. Later, gold died,
Crimson hardened, blue dried…
Shade and light were muted browns and ochre.
Whatever scope your mattered form revealed
Had your likeness concealed –
No canvas so became a winding sheet.
I left you incomplete,
A sketch that faded as the wash annealed.
My hand was staggering my mind, unable
To dabble with sable
And oil in the secret colors of your life.
The palette, the knife,
The propped easel do little at elbow,
Less at arm’s length, impotent to depict
The simple perfect
Of your eyes. A masterpiece without name,
You broke your faith with frame
And canvas – so I hang in retrospect.
Nice….
give old JOB a run for his salsa.
Sniff, sniff,
I thought I smelled a challenge….
JOB
Son: Daddy why you gotta mow the lawn every weekend?
Mystic: Ask you mother.
JOB
This is really good. Here is my favorite part.
You glittered darkly like a stone curio
In chiaroscuro,
Hard and formal, untouchable image –
A feverish mirage
In the looking glass on your clothes bureau.
Candlelight purled your eyes, each a mirror
To read back my error
Of wounded perspective. Later, gold died,
Crimson hardened, blue dried…
Shade and light were muted browns and ochre.
I am a little tired to offer my interpretations. A former love or the fall of man? But what type of love? Need time, and the light is magnificent.
I am a bit confused. Did you intend for Matthew’s stanza to be prepended to yours? If not, read it all as one. It works quite well. Matthew’s Eve and stain fits nicely with your last line. Matthew’s opens up a lot more depth.
It is a beautiful work. I read it several times. Too bad you weren’t born 200 years ago, I could have read you in college.
CM,
Thanks, as always, for the kind words, as always.
Actually, as I told Matthew when I sent it to him, I had the poem in utero – and his own poem had worked as an inductive agent (kind of like potosin) for my own.
Speaking of his, which he calls a beginning, but sits fine by itself, too, I was particularly delighted by the rhyme scheme – reinforcing the external-internal-external movement of the theme (the poem moves from the external garden to Adam’s mind (central lines, “to match….Trained…” are first acts of the intellect) and then moves out again to the rain and external weathers of inspiration and process. The rhyme scheme not accidentally suggests this: abccba. Brilliant!
(My favorite line, “Mashed a berry, made a stain…” The consonant values, again, capture something of the blunt force bursting the berry juice – the bubble of the berry’s “b” becomes the flatter sound of the monosyllabic “stain” – reinforced by the assonance of the “mashed…made…” (Think of the berry, then think of a sticky puddle of preserves, the dynamic become viscid).
But to answer you’re other questions, I didn’t intend my poem to continue Matthews – I suppose it was more like a jazz improv, taking a trumpet riff and building on it with a clarinet. But, you’re right, there is a relationship between the two – as I said to Matthew, his poem had quickened my own child in the womb….
I take the compliment for what it is, of course, as kindly as ever you gave, but to tell truth I’m glad I wasn’t born 200 years ago. I like my friends and family well enough in this time. And besides, I probably wouldn’t have half my teeth…
Nothing beats a good dental plan.
JOB
I agree about Matthew’s poem, it is standalone. Blake.
Would there be a need for art in paradise? A berry harvest resulting in a stain is an allusion to another fruit harvest resulting in a stain, and the need to mow the lawn on the weekends. This is also my favorite line. The first two lines suggest the innocent desire of man to mirror his creator. It would be the motivator—resulting in a guileless art before the wound. Perhaps he is suggesting that even in this innocent desire resides the key flaw. I can create too. Maybe we were designed to fail?
Crimson always reminds me of blood. Crimson following stain even more about blood. Think of the berry, then think of a sticky puddle of blood, the dynamic becomes viscid. Just a suggestion, but I moved from “the garden” to my garden rather quickly after that. If not Mr. L’s intention, at least that is how his words manipulated my brain cells. I propagandized my biology. I was not in control.
I thought it was a nice fit with your poem, because it flowed from pre-fall art to post-fall art. If the poems are one, then it flows this way. Yours is darker and has motives. I don’t see the innocent desire to create there. Yours is harder and less organic than his—more manipulative. In Matthew’s visualize the man heaping and shaping clay. He is covered with it, fingers moving through it. Imagine the slurping and sucking sounds of the clay. Yours is more about possession, hard corners, reflections of reality, and being denied.
I too enjoyed the rhyme scheme. The abccba is well done. However, being the mystic, I would also like abccca, change “rain” to “mists” and read it aloud. I don’t know the technical terms for that, please train me. (Mercy, I am a beggar. Fill my bowl.) I understand that in those times the earth was watered by the mists. Always mysts suggest mystery, and mystics walk amongst the mysts. Plus there is an imperfection in the scheme, and stain being the effected word. It has no rhyme. It gets left out of the plan. It seems right that there is no symmetry there. It is a slightly more organic play–a beautiful imperfection.
I will leave a note for the ancestors then to look for you in 200 years. Sincerely.