The Magic of Seeing

I promised a poem about an artist. Here, instead, is a poem of mine about art. I referenced the work and processes of many artists. This is the first poem in my book, This Business of Wisdom. 

THE MAGIC OF SEEING

by Lauren Camp

Notice the yellowing tape

and the graphite hatches scattered across the paper:

a dark diagram

of saved details. Notice the pattern

scored into each layer,

then stripped and curved away, the long arc

of sunlit days gilded into squares.

Toss your small goodbyes into the sanded planes

and the grid

slumped into a vague halo of  wax. Notice the spaces

for your worries. Notice

the buoyant red and its authority

over the canvas, the way it seems to be igniting.

Notice lines that have collapsed, the ripped

and wrung-out corners

and the ruthless ones,

each a departure from perfect balance. Notice the sweat,

the swagger of trees, the shadow, and the scale.

You stand in a pinhole, surfacing again in a haze

of light – a paradox of vision; this is the view

from the constructed earth, the sea,

the future. You are folded into the shape

and stretch; your sure eye

will see the ghosts, the yeasty texture of deliberation

caked on and scraped off. Concentrate on the bruises:

the pauses –

and the breaks, each quarrel

of pigment, the devotion to luck

and the points of harmony, the drips, the gin,

the risk

and negative space; enjoy the language

of the hand and the small stroke of reason.

A shy ripple haunts the tall gray letters; notice

the horses’ hooves, the fruit bowl, the spattered bloom

of bravery, the virtue of the varnish.

Listen to the slashes, the fire. 

Notice the dots. And those

repeating orange cars. And when your hands ask,

love the hands that built this, that tilted back the paint

into blades and eyes.

Notice the white, the thunderous white

brooding with invisible butterflies in the center of the picture.