"Interior of a Photograph" - Valenzuela, 2012
This was once a photograph, I have no idea of what, maybe
a family member or a flower. Now it looks organic and fundamental,
like those gems and rocks at the Natural History Museum that
are craggy and dull on the outside and when sliced open and polished,
have incandescent interiors that speak of the molten hot
center of the earth and the fire and ice of the big bang and what it
must have been like to have been birthed during that fiery catacalysm.
I think this photo must be pleased with its new incarnation as
"Art" - after all, who knew that the interior of a simple family
photograph is as luminous and glowing as the center of the earth?
Looking at it put me in mind of this achingly beautiful poem by
Jane Hirshfield(below), giving homage to what was once a love poem.
***
Thistle - via tumblr
THIS WAS ONCE A LOVE POEM
This was once a love poem,
before its haunches thickened, its breath grew short,
before it found itself sitting,
perplexed and a little embarrassed,
on the fender of a parked car,
while many people passed by without turning their heads.
It remembers itself dressing as if for a great engagement.
It remembers choosing these shoes,
this scarf or tie.
Once, it drank beer for breakfast,
drifted its feet
in a river side by side with the feet of another.
Once it pretended shyness, then grew truly shy,
dropping its head so the hair would fall forward,
so the eyes would not be seen.
It spoke with passion of history, of art.
It was lovely then, this poem.
Under its chin, no fold of skin softened.
Behind the knees, no pad of yellow fat.
What it knew in the morning it still believed at nightfall.
An unconjured confidence lifted its eyebrows, its cheeks.
The longing has not diminished.
Still it understands. It is time to consider a cat,
the cultivation of African violets or flowering cactus.
Yes, it decides:
Many miniature cacti, in blue and red painted pots.
When it finds itself disquieted
by the pure and unfamiliar silence of its new life,
it will touch them - one, then another -
with a single finger outstretched like a tiny flame.
- Jane Hirshfield,
From: Given Sugar, Given Salt
***
