Study In Orange and White

Painting by Simon Fairless


Study In Orange And White

I knew that James Whistler
was part of the Paris scene,
but I was still surprised
when I found the painting
of his mother at the Musée d'Orsay
among all the colored dots
and mobile brushstrokes
of the French Impressionists.

And I was surprised to notice
after a few minutes of benign staring,
how that woman, stark in profile
and fixed forever in her chair,
began to resemble my own ancient mother
who was now fixed forever in the stars,
the air, the earth.

You can understand why
he titled the painting
"Arrangement in Gray and Black"
instead of what everyone
naturally calls it, but afterward,
as I walked along the river bank,
I imagined how it might have broken
the woman's heart to be demoted
from mother to a mere composition,
a study in colorlessness.

As the summer couples leaned
into each other along the quay
and the wide, low-slung boats
full of spectators slid up and down
the Seine between the carved stone bridges
and their watery reflections,
I thought: how ridiculous, how off-base.

It would be like Botticelli calling
"The Birth of Venus"--"Composition in Blue,
Ochre, Green, and Pink,"
or the other way around
like Rothko titling one of his sandwiches
of color--"Fishing Boats Leaving Falmouth
Harbor at Dawn."

Or, as I scanned the menu at the cafe
where I now had come to rest,
it would be like painting
something laughable,
like a chef turning on a spit
over a blazing fire in front
of an audience of ducks
and calling it
"Study in Orange and White."

But by that time,
a waiter had appeared
with my glass of Pernod
and a clear pitcher of water,
and I sat there thinking of nothing
but the women and men passing by--
mothers and sons walking
their small fragile dogs--
and about myself,
a kind of composition in blue and khaki,
and, now that I had poured
some water into the glass, milky-green.

Billy Collins

Posted over on Poemhunter