Last night I went home again - Transported from my bed, I walked my father’s fields, Plushly undulating under heel; I watched his loping strides, Mesmerised by the systematic sibilance Of his legs scissoring through grass As he mowed down swathes in sweeps Of his swashbuckling scythe; Just like he would mow down my mother With the bellicose blade of his tongue When, in one of her capering moods, She would dance on the rooftops, Sparkling with the stars and Moaning with the moon; But when she crash-landed home, She would sit with old Annabelle, Forehead sunk into thin flank As her fingers pulled and pulled For milk that had long since run dry; On Sundays she was a lamb of the flock But rebellious in her Venetian beads, For, having had enough of milk, She scorned the pallidity of pearls; One day the string snapped, Spilling candied baubles all over the floor, The spent ammunition of her days. Last night I went home again But I had to leave with the sun When it made of my dream A bitten peach, dripping golden juice, To gobble up in the last luscious second Before it faded for good; Today I grip the stony pit Hard enough for it to bite, So that I can feel the memory - Those chocolate-round Marshmallow-soft Limpid pools Of her eyes.
Have you seen the painting ‘I and the Village‘ by Russian-French artist Marc Chagall (that’s him in the pic)? I couldn’t find a copyright-free image of the painting to put up here, but you might have come across it. In any case, it’s easily Google-able.
It shows the green face of a man, all arcs and angles, making intense eye contact with a humanoid sheep. Scattered around these two are smaller figures engaged in farming activities. In the background, there are buildings and pink whorls. Startlingly, many of these things are upside-down, or hang around in defiance of gravity.
Although a painting like this begs for analysis, most of the commentaries I’ve come across say that it’s simply a happy dream of a childhood home.
Being me, however, I couldn’t resist giving it a more sinister spin. For instance, the mother in the poem seems to have a mental illness that made life difficult for the family. I feel that she died under unnatural circumstances.
I enjoyed this exercise of writing a poem inspired by a painting, and I shall be looking for the next source of inspiration! Have you one to suggest?
