Three Poems

XII Whistler's 'Variations in Violet and Green'

A perfect purity: a man stands on the shore,
The figure hazed by mist, or is it water,
Solid, and yet transparent;
Could colour ever be so light
That form and background make a depthless unity?

The man, who is he,
That oh so valid daytime ghost;
The shore forever haunted
By his pale dissolve
Into the rain, the sand, the sky?
                                                                                27 May 2004

(At the Philadelphia Museum of Art, at the Manet and the Sea exhibition)


XXI

Pale on dark gold, a seemly luxury,
Calligraphy for Angels, the Divine Koran
Asks nothing less; each word a revelation
For the true believer - for the illiterate
...