An Abstract Wilderness

Painting by Jean Delville


AN ABSTRACT WILDERNESS

Young bamboo uprooted by heavy rains,
The roots are
Dark brown curls,
Long, longer that than the longest bamboo limb
With its arrow-head leaves.
The roots spread out, floated on black muck.
Looked like the hair
Of Madame Stuart Merrill as painted by Delville.

The flesh-colored sand beneath
Had pale blue eyes: two rain drops.
There was something of the sinister side
Of Symbolism about the vague scene.
The atmosphere that surrounded
Was a garden of black lilies.
The rain had dimmed and darkened the distance,
The peacock appeared as dark blue.
I gazed at the end of the uprooted root.
The ends looked as if the pincers
of a sea creature.
The rain increased, all became abstract,
it was impossible
To designate with familiar name any shape.
The heavy rain gave a wilderness
without nomenclature.


Duane Locke

Posted over on The Hold