January 2016
Lex Runciman
lruncim@linfield.edu
lruncim@linfield.edu
When I think of debts (other than those to family), I think first of libraries and librarians – God bless them every one. A college professor for more than 30 years, I taught first at Oregon State and since 1992 at Linfield College. Five books of poems carry my name on their spines, including an Oregon Book Award winner (1989) and the most recent two from Jessie Lendennie’s Salmon Poetry, which, delightfully, has a mailing address without a single number in it.
Lace, Red Cup, a Rise of Buttons
after Las Meninas, by Diego Velazquez
A room airy and high.
What can old time caught say now new –
why look at old Diego, who has painted himself
painting, wherein, palette of wet colors in hand,
he has stepped back now to look at us?
Commentators may say who is who and what what,
but really you have to stand in front of it –
all its 1656, nine feet across and ten feet tall –
stand your eyes in front of it and let time go,
knowing even in that first glance,
even as out an open window crows argue,
knowing you must choose – this figure or that,
a God-anointed girl, conversation you’ll never hear,
a mirror, a sated dog. Or merely the umber warm
of ceiling and distance, or, farther back, a wall,
someone coming or going in a backlit open door.
Faces turn – what is your wealth, your poverty,
your hope? Better, Velasquez thinks, not finished.
He rolls his shoulders, opens and closes his hands.
Time has gone again – summer solstice, light
leaves so late and arrives so early, who sleeps?
He will need to eat something soon
but for now he goes outside,
stars mostly gone, night’s few last clouds –
lead white, he thinks, azurite blue.
after Las Meninas, by Diego Velazquez
A room airy and high.
What can old time caught say now new –
why look at old Diego, who has painted himself
painting, wherein, palette of wet colors in hand,
he has stepped back now to look at us?
Commentators may say who is who and what what,
but really you have to stand in front of it –
all its 1656, nine feet across and ten feet tall –
stand your eyes in front of it and let time go,
knowing even in that first glance,
even as out an open window crows argue,
knowing you must choose – this figure or that,
a God-anointed girl, conversation you’ll never hear,
a mirror, a sated dog. Or merely the umber warm
of ceiling and distance, or, farther back, a wall,
someone coming or going in a backlit open door.
Faces turn – what is your wealth, your poverty,
your hope? Better, Velasquez thinks, not finished.
He rolls his shoulders, opens and closes his hands.
Time has gone again – summer solstice, light
leaves so late and arrives so early, who sleeps?
He will need to eat something soon
but for now he goes outside,
stars mostly gone, night’s few last clouds –
lead white, he thinks, azurite blue.
©2016 Lex Runciman