And so we are implicated by looking...

Grasse-en-Provence, July-August 2022

( Old lock, teaching me the patience of keys..)

 

J'arrive

 

 

 

To be touched by the textures of stone, 

the measure and gradient of a hill, 

the angles of the sun, is to be 

human, very human...

 

 

 

 

There are festive

Lights, fireworks, street

Decorations. Textures,

Everywhere. Smooth

Cobble underfoot, rougher

Cobble in the walls.

 

 

                            Bells!

A simple

Rebond every

Morning; on Sundays,

Ten, one for each hour, calling

Mass, whilst the smoggy salt

 

Air clears slowly. 

                       

 

 

 

 

I wasn’t sure what I saw in the horizon; how to draw it (yet):

 

 

 

     The alps are

The back of some old animal’s

Wish to arrive and stay.

 

*          *

 

 

CHAGALL DANCES

La Musee Nationale Marc Chagall, Nice

Chagall spent the last decades of his life in the south of France. He had created a cycle of 17 large canvases, titled 'The Biblical Message', for a chapel in Vence but decided that these works which combine biblical with personal references and 'dream states' were also too secular for an active place of worship; hence, he donated the cycle to the French State (1966).  The Minister of Culture, Andre Malraux, commissioned architect Andre Hermant to create a bespoke gallery space, on land gifted by The City of Nice, opening in 1973. The Musee houses all the canvases, preparatory sketches, copper plates, lithographs, painted furniture, statues and a tapestry, as well as a mosaic and stained glass windows created for the concert room Chagall wanted for Museum experience. 

 I) 

 

Moishe has a script that he is

Dancing to.

Happy M! O Happy

Angel!

            And some of the people

seem happy too.

 

O holy

Day! We are given The

Word that makes us dance!

 

 

 

II)

 

 

They embrace in a

Field, there are birds and flowers.

The field is a sea of green

 

 

III) 

War amongst the angels

 

 

 

 Birds become bombers;

 The city still stands, but there are

 No more rainbows

 

 

*          *

IV)

The piano's lid holds all the music in the pastoral; the lapis of the window holds faith and hope.

 

V)  Plows, Cows and Clowns

 

 

We are all

Tired; we are all

Stained. Our lives are smeared with

Endeavour, hope, and fear.

 

 

The Ram plays a

Violin beside a lamp.

 

It is

Music of the

Entrails.

 

 

 *         *

 

VI)  JE T’EMBRACE

 

Jacob

Wrestles with the

Angel; Prospero with the

Sea; Chagall with

Shakespeare, his God and his 

Ancestors.

 

Three angels

Chat about the value of

Life with their doves, in

a cave of ruby light.

 

 

*          *

Please let my children know...that I saw this:

 *            *

 VII)  And so, Chagall teaches us how to see:

 

*            *

VIII)  

 

Heat

Is a heavy

Pillow that presses on the day’s

Cheeks and my ambitions.

 

                        The other night, one

cloud teased at

moisture that would not fall:

 

 

 

*            *

 

IX)  

And then, we find the moon

shakes us awake, to attend to other obligations:

 

 

 

"If all life moves inevitably towards its end, then we must, during our own, colour it with our colours of love and hope."

[speech made by Marc Chagall at  the inauguration of the Museum on 7 July 1973] 

 

 

*          *

X)  LA LIVRE, MOI

 

I would like to be written well.

I would like to be understood, as I understand

There are slats in those window shutters that divide

Solid from space, shadow from

Light.

 

Beyond these high

walls, a steep alley where

Washing falls onto cobblestones, 

forever now

unreachable.

 

I would like to be

written well, as the drapes

hang over the mirror frames and touch my

Forehead as I pass under low doors.

 

I would like

To know that what I think can be

Shared, that my

                        desires can be

Caressed, my temples

Stroked, my lips

Met, unfurled.

 

 

I am surrounded by books

I am consumed by hunger

 

I ask, 

to be held

I pray,

to be nourished

May I

also give light; may I also

replenish and be replenished..

*             *

 

 

 

*                *

XI)  Entanglements

 

 

I have walked the labyrinth here three times: 

the first, in an afternoon glare, ignored by the cafe cognoscenti in the square;  

the second, almost fighting for space against vans and tourists who patently do not care.

 

The joke strikes best for whom it means the least

 

The madwoman trips across the adse in borrowed 

shoes

The coffee drinkers 

        perhaps

 slow their conversations as I pass

 

*            *

 

 

XII)  Alcoves

 

 

 

 

 

*            *