Under the willow
\nSun bright
\nMy internal soul sparked by color and shapes
\nfrom before I had knowledge of art
\nA pre-linguistic knowing of
\ncanvases, paintings from a century ago.
\nI believe I’ve seen one or two before
\nKnow I’ve been through their previous collections.
\nThey have shaped my elder eye
\nPost education
\nPost language
\nMy internal lens molded for years
\nAnd you’d think left behind
\nInstead finely etched
\nIn fine porcelain,
\nembroidered
\nIn satin jewel color thread<\/p>\n
Museums taught me how to act
\nBegan my training to see
\nCanvases stretched tall
\nWomen whose stomachs were just round
\nenough<\/p>\n
Once I thought I could be a model
\nOnce I wanted to dance
\nNever did I think I could
\nStomach too round from the start,<\/p>\n
Taught me how to speak softly.
\nSpy on strangers so unlike me.
\nSee life in frozen moments,
\nGlued together telling a story.
\nGlimpses into my pretending world
\nTaught me about light and depth
\nSpace between people
\nCharacteristics of an eye<\/p>\n
Did I really want to be an artist’s model?
\nDid I already know too much about things I should not have known?
\nA wine cherry velvet cloth?
\nThe stroke of the back of a hand
\nThe simple touch of strong lips?<\/p>\n
The color and light of a park in Paris
\nHow we got from here to there
\nFrom Belgium to Hudson
\nRenoir to Wyeth
\nAnd how that affects the framing of my photographs
\nMuseums in my first 20 years
\nWere thick strong chord in
\nThe braid of me<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Under the willow Sun bright My internal soul sparked by color and shapes from before I had knowledge of art A pre-linguistic knowing of canvases, paintings from a century ago. I believe I’ve seen one or two before Know I’ve been through their previous collections. They have shaped my elder eye Post education Post language … Continue reading The Clark<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4227,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[62],"tags":[],"issue":[6885],"class_list":["post-2647","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry","issue-6885"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-22 15:15:03","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/plum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2647","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/plum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/plum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/plum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4227"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/plum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2647"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/plum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2647\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2648,"href":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/plum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2647\/revisions\/2648"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/plum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2647"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/plum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2647"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/plum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2647"},{"taxonomy":"issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/plum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/issue?post=2647"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}