About suffering they were never wrong,
the Old Masters…
—W. H. Auden, “Musée des Beaux Arts”
(more…)
What language there is to express the ful-
ness of color and light and stroke is lost
on my lips. All I can do is circle
the cavernous halls where schoolchildren coast
past paintings we can’t fully understand,
past masses of tourists looking wayward
as microphoned interpreters expound
on the merits of a treasured work.
Between Two Rivers 