Feel the atmospherics. See 
the common center 
where the eye backs 
out of the brush. Flat 
field, bent grass, billowing 
blue you’d take for 
sky is water: true or false? 

Count on contradiction, 
unexpectedness, a link: 
St. Elmo’s rain, anticipation 
soon of seeing sun. 

Sun will not be sun alone 
and trees not only trees. 

Lead me to the clearing 
where you paint.  
There, a window 
frames a Sitka 
spruce, her drapey raiment. 
A flimsy wishing-
nest of mourning doves—interpreter-
angels. Scrying sky
we’ve all seen holding 

heaven touching down,
in lines
as slant as ladders—
piercing pink to coral-violet
sea to seaweed green. 

Perpetual: the 
empathy of color.
                        

Magical Carpets by Barbara Feith,
watercolor and ink, 12” x 10”
Photo credit: Elana Wolff

	for Barbara Feith (1927-2021)

Barbara painted tiny rugs, embellished them with ink—
the kind that comes to life 

with mythical thinking. 
She might have chosen other means 

than fine, exacting strokes
but so loved Istanbul, the Grand Bazaar, the turquoise 

palaces, the waters and the mosques, 
the skies. And that’s the way she worked.   

Look, a decorated horse. The golden-
red chiaroscuro glints—

I’ll ride him saddle seat 
and he won’t throw me. In private 

re-enactment, I’m among the antique flyers. 
From on high, I watch an entourage—

a line of inklings—
wending down a hillside 

to a strand. Everything these pilgrims own 
is added to their backs. It’s hard to understand their will to walk 

and yet it’s not: 
A woman in a glowing robe and diadem is leading.  

Rays are falling on the carpets waiting to be claimed. 
Into art does not mean out of reach.