Tuesday, June 17, 2014

172. Meninas

Las Meninas, Diego Velázquez (1656)
Museo del Prado, Madrid

Slanted
sits the
artwork: physical
body hidden
in a
temperature-controlled
vault-laboratory
hybrid thing;
exhumed to the present day,
mounted and dissected,
eyes observing,
dissecting;
essays
hum;
editors scramble furiously on the
Wikipedia
page...

Backing away,
curtain falls
as the
chamberlain
clears the exit

Two girls awkwardly caught
half-sentence in
curtsies, well
one –
the other still
unawares,
el búcaro outstretched
from her imploring
arms, fingers of
one curled in
mid-
persuasion

Despite her mourning
garb
the
guardian chatters
animatedly with the
guard, name
lost to
exclusive seats of
history

mumbling,
bumbling,
buzzing mutely:
as Two imported dwarves
form spectacle, one
obviously teasing the
peeved dog,
the other remarkably
solemn,
questioning.

Nineteen years and one
wife
separate the uncle from his
niece,
her arm tucked
protectively around
his?

The artist
rests: self-
portrait,
photograph?
Paint drops speckle his
boots in
real
time

Time ticks:
ribbons like
captive
wildflower
flare on the
alabaster plains;
ethereal, the
five-year-old
serenely gazes into
eternity

Bent knees
hover expectantly,
silk rustling, mute

Centrepiece, she
stands:
the business
frozen, betraying the
Purpose;
yet faces glisten,
inquiring,
else incoherent
of the
Moment:

The high
green-brown
panels silently
concur,
stolid,
enigmatic,
slumbering with the
weight of
centuries

Emptied,
its physical forbearer since perished,
imagination and
interpretation can only resurrect

Quiet,
the
noon
buzzes…

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One Art, to recognize, must be,
Another Art to Praise.

- Emily Dickinson