A Legacy

And as soon as I was in NY’s MoMA
You wanted me to/expected me to speak,
feel secure, a shipping container à la some sort of formula
except art & textiles do not translate into trees
or the stick figure into a formidable example of weather
because I didn’t want to insert myself
in the mass hysteria of matter

Perhaps it’s true I got stuck in
the exhibition, the English tree branch, its leaves—
the language not just a dream
something I pasted on to describe
a show of the private
Is it just my blind spot?
The form’s only a shadow, like time, can’t kiss it,
and I mean to be thrilled by a garden
or a line a building makes

Let’s start looking
writing I could, it could be a late cloudburst,
aware of language looking at me as though a Chinese moon
which is huge—
to translate
the mind into something human
the gallery explodes as if space
as if, I haven’t just
walked backwards
into reality into fluency
into an open mouth

Space Occupied &

—After Ruth Asawa, Untitled (S.315, Hanging Six-Lobed,
MultiLayered Interlocking Continuous Form within a Form with
Spheres in the Second and Fourth Lobes) c. 1976

The pattern:
I’m inside, breathless—
Arrival, and departure
by boat (the old fashioned way)
where the ocean drew a deep distinction—
in a moment haunted by the physical
by entrances & exits
& getting stuck (“I want to go back”)
inside the turbulence
where I had no rights—
a ghost       inside the copper & brass
It’s unutterable what’s turned around
what left a trace of thick homesickness
What I see in the patterns
a harmony of endurance
hands that tied ties together
I was at your mercy, a human animal, caught
in a difficult time
The shadow cast by the sculpture loosens
all kinds of feelings captured in its intricate net—
enigmatic shapes made of tied-wire assuage
& the charm exuded
shifts with a repositioning of the light

Almost never seen as it really is

“I think the soul is the color of water” —Patti Smith

Very poor the nomenclature of
the in-between, the tones—
what happens between?
What counts? Not “what” but “how”
All lights all darks
can lose brightness
& end with our falling in love
Many different roles
in these moments where I forget to assign,
to “push” light
How difficult to keep the eye fixed on a point
when there’s a multitude of selves
a palette of them
Illusions as reflected
in space,
“illusion of the optical,”
“illusion of volume floating,”
and the intervals between
A sequence of recurrence (again?)
in time
different behavior (perhaps)
“Myth” she said “like music takes time”
produces nearness—intimacy,
& respect
Still “I” don’t know “her”
just dominance of form or shape
And what if there’s nothing
giving meaning to limitations—
may look dark sometimes
the after-image that
goes on

(Quotations from The Interaction of color by Josef Albers)