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View from the Dunes with Beach and Piers, Domburg: Piet Mondrian, 1909 (Museum of Modern Art, New York)
With Bob and Joanne then, rounding
the cliffs from Wharf Road
to the beach one idle late summer
afternoon, as if time were endless,
sitting down then to rest
as if at home, at water’s
edge, the seabirds swooping,
the beach empty, the talk lapping,
inconsequential, nothing brings
consequence, all happens, all this
sweet nothing. The moments flood back,
a blurring tide, and then withdraw
again into the ever
accumulating pool of ebbing
attentions, lost hopes, forgotten so
called dreams. No longer here to live,
simply to snatch another breath.
Three sat talking on the beach, one
doesn’t know what was meant,
one doesn’t know what was
said. But the faces, the voices
come for a moment clear. There, in
that light. Here. The tide incoming.
So it was then as the sun went down.
for Robert Creeley (1926-2005)
7 comments:
Dear Tom: graceful.
Thanks, Tom, for (if not also from) the company.
Tom, I've always loved this poem, and to see it here with Mondrian's painting -- just perfect!
There’s an astonishing sense of presence in this, Tom. One is drawn in, is there, in a moment that only seems to go down with the sun, but lives on in these words, is endless.
Thanks friends. Feeling the brevity of life somewhat sharply lately, it's good to have the rough edges of temporality bevelled down a bit by that drifting feeling of timelessness which comes with the return, in reverie, of pleasant moments of the past.
I love this! The painting, the poem . . . Perfect!
Thanks so much Nin, Mondrian couldn't have said it better himself!
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