SYMBOLISM

Portraiture, pigmented oils
seeping into canvas colored by
understanding flecks and strokes
of capacity, of feeling, represent
the life sensed by the artist
observant.  The nose an empty canoe
lying on a clear cold surface of the lake
among the hills, the eyes accepting
a greater happiness that will yet
through time and growth exceed itself:

Not symbols; yet where does this life exist,
bright guest in this universe that includes
blank canvases, those brushes charged with meaning
by dabs directed by the eyes that flick and probe,
trace the path repeatedly from palette
to work?  It flickers here and there, was not,
is, will be, and to be seen or grasped
outside the circle of love must be
translated into metaphor natural and simple
dragging forth a chastened complexity
for those who know and who do not.


Utah 1984
M. Reynolds