Poetics: bright shadows

Homage, Tom Mix, "Cupid in the Cow Camp," 1913 by David Lee Guss

Were children called "bright" when he was a boy
or when she was a girl? Was this child bright,
or dull as those eyes staring out from the
shadows of Time? What brightened the child's
days — a trip to the dark hardware store
where hard candies were a prize for being
still over by the stove as the adults spoke?
What lurked in the shadows behind
the folds of that developing brain? Sinister
plans or nonsense nuances? Does it even matter
now? Who loved the child enough to keep the
portrait, to stand it against the dusty, cold
stove? Someone who recognized that art thrives
in bright shadows.



Written for Poetics — The Poetics of Groundhog Day — Bright Shadow at dVerse Poets, hosted this week by Karin Gustafson, whose prompt post gave samples of wonderful shadow poems, and asked that we consider "jumping off (or into) bright shadows" in our own poems this week. 

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Chiaroscuro: a poem

Chiaroscuro

The point of it all may be
just this — in the end:

Shadows fold
like memories and
stretch like dreams;
Full of emptiness like
the hollows that once
housed eyes;
Roaring with silence
like a symphony of bells
without clappers;
Carrying the incense
of our seasons in
their smoky, colorless
modesty;
Freed of woe and suffering —
Freed even of joy; and
Needing nothing forever
except light.

                 MLydiaM ~ November 2011








St. Francis of Assisi in His Tomb, Francisco de Zurbarán, ca.1630/34



This is my nearly-too-late piece for Poetics at dVerse, where this week we are asked in a brilliantly-written prompt by Victoria to Play with Color.

I adore chiaroscuro, so selected the following from her commentary as my inspiration for the approach I took in composing my poem this week: Renaissance painters employed chiaroscuro, significant contrasts of light and dark, to add intensity and passion to their work.



Note: Discussion of the painting here.

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