Paula Bohince
In this rich and privileged
light, in true
American light, where hung
chandeliers, diamond dew-
drop earrings, stoles
of perfume plundered
from the sex
of animals,
one antique urge
dovetails into another:
how to reconcile earth
with progress; poverty
with the lust
of imagination.
Where scat lies: a presidential
bedroom;
the grand dining hall: iron
and sepia plaques
depicting the grandeur become
ghost,
government-burned,
preserving
watery vistas the famous
plein air painters
meant to see us
through the centuries:
oil and water-
colors for praising fowl,
the combed-through
clouds, moss and egg-
shaded mountains.
Historical,
those clouds, heading east
in vast liaison
with train-made smoke, shrugging
headlong
into our future, transient
as anything
lived on a daredevil cliff.
