| Figures
in a Landscape
by Gail Mazur
We
were two figures in a landscape,
in the middle distance, in summer.
In
the foreground, twisty olive trees,
a mild wind made the little dry leaves tremble.
Then,
of course, the horizon,
the radiant blue sky.
(The
maker was hungry for light,
light silvered the leaves, a stream.)
I
liked to think, for your sake,
the scene was Italian, 17th century. …
Viewed
from here, we resembled one another
though in truth we were unalike—
and
we were tiny, he'd kept us small
so the painting would be landscape, not anecdote.
We
were made things, deftly assembled
but beginning to show wear—
you,
muscular, sculptural,
and I was I, we were different, we had a story.
On
good days we found comedy in that,
pratfalls and also great sadness.
Sun
moved across the sky and lowered
until you, then I, were in shadow, bereft.
The
Renaissance had ended—
we'd long known we were mortal.
In
shadow, I held the wild daisies and cosmos
we'd been gathering for the table.
Then
the sky behind us pinked and enflamed
the landscape where we were left
to
our own reinvention, two silhouettes
who still had places they meant to travel,
who
were not abstractions—had you pricked them
they'd have bled, alizarin crimson.
I
wanted to walk by myself awhile
but I'd always been afraid to lose you
and
the naked olive groves were hovering
as if to surround you.
That
was the problem:
I craved loneliness; I needed the warmth of love.
If
no one looks at us, do we or don't we disappear?
The landscape would survive without us.
When
you're in it, it's not landscape
any more than the horizon's a line you can stand on.
March
2009 |
