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Landscape |
Her best one cannot be captured on a canvas,
her finest will never hang in museums–
for Autumn is by far the greatest painter:
the winds over desert or snow,
and flames are her most skilful brushes.
Such an ephemeral picture like a shimmer–
how to capture it, how to keep that haze
on a dark mirror, or in the purple clouds
over the forest, or on the inside of your eyelids–
views of yellow rocks washed by the sand.
A thin black widow in her eighties,
my moon-eyed grandmother, told us
(the circle of kindred spirits and grandchildren
almost jealous of her blindness) about
the most wonderful coloured dreams-
her long, countless, unbelievable visions-
as she grew smaller and smaller,
ordering the pictures of her youth
beneath her forehead, again and again,
smiling girlishly on her white deathbed.
The most wonderful is like memory:
there is no frame to contain that
landscape lasting but one wink or less.
copyright 2004
Dan
Danila |
