"A Sunday Afternoon on the Ile de la Grande Jatte"
Topiary Garden; Deaf School Park; Columbus, Ohio
Everything here grows beyond the ear,
entangles itself in the inner
canal that listens
to twigs twining to wire,
to the Sunday-afternoon picnickers
Seurat has stretched out for us
on the clean, bright lawn of the Deaf School.
The clipped yew mimics clinging vines
chastised by a green-thumbed sculptor
we read is Mason. He has unbricked
the walled frame of museums,
unpotted the paints, remixed top hats and strollers,
men and women so merry
in nineteenth-century, pointillistic leisure.
His painter's hues
and shimmering brilliance
transplanted into this:
green leaning beneath parasols,
on the shoulders of trees,
on our now-relaxed, rejuvenated
momentary lives.
It is Sunday. We unfold
our papers, stretch out
amongst the picnickers,
dare a moment to close
our work-bleared eyes, grow
toward the painting inside.
earlier version:
He has transplanted the painter's hues,
his shimmering brilliance, all into this:
green leaning beneath parasols,
on the shoulders of trees,
on the now-relaxed, rejuvenated
moment of our lives.
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