At a museum yesterday I sat and stared at this painting. It transported me to a world with a wooden school desk and a clock ticking on the wall. The hot waxy smell of melted crayons. Balloons in a summer rain sinking slowly to the ground. A miniature wooden circus in a clearing in the woods. Indistinct voices in the distance playing some kind of game.
Looking at the painting was like looking through a scrim at a dreamy, long-ago childhood I may have lived or may have imagined living. When I left the museum I thought of the below poem by Mike White, a poem I recite to myself pretty much every day.
Alley in Winter, by Mike White
Let the work
of art be
beautiful
as the fire
escape is
beautiful
dazzled in ice
after the fire
For more information about poet Mike White, please click here,
For more information about painter Sam Francis, please click here.
Alison McGhee 