-after an exhibit of Ellsworth Kelly prints at MMoCA
Some forms are pristine
and bounded, to keep
the color in the lines, the cattle
in the pasture, so to speak.
In the pasture stand wayward cattle and
a weathered barn with a wide
corrugated roof, and spaces
the sunlight doesn’t fill, pock-marks
in the tin. But, for the sake of art
and argument, let’s erase the grass
and the cattle from the canvas. Let’s
whitewash the November trees.
And clear the slate sky, too,
with its little flock of sheep. Yes,
let’s lead them home. Let’s
disassemble the barn, plank
by rustic plank.
But leave us this roof afloat in a wash of white,
this bent rectangle. If life and love were that simple,
we would not be distracted by shadows.
A triangle would be a Triangle,
not just three angled sides leaning against each other. love
would be Love. cows would be Cows,
not just bovine shadows cast against a cave wall.
But here we are, tethered
to our cave, cold but not alone.
Like calves crated from birth,
we don’t crave clover fields
when our time comes.
When our time comes, we only see
shadows on the ground and reflections
in the water at first. Next we notice
the stars and moon by night. Eventually
we see the sun in its proper place.
We spoon colored paper pulp, yolk yellow,
onto wet sheets of unpigmented paper.
We dry it and run it through the printing press,
the color bleeding outside crisp lines.
And each impression defers to chance,
to time, like the weathered barn
with the rectangled roof. We name this form
“Yellow Curve” and hang it
from the cave’s sunless walls.
evelynwestbrook 