The Parthenon. George Hobson

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      March Morning

      Glazed ferns gleam through tenebrous fir,

      Stirring memories that rise,

      Like trout to glinting lures,

      From root-wheels and sodden logs

      Mired on the bottom of years.

      Slabs of sun and shadow

      Stripe a grassy roadbank

      Opposite a stand of pine trees

      In the hills west of the Roannais

      Above the bright-shining sword

      Of the River Loire.

      Mid-March,

      Morning,

      Balsam air.

      Here, there,

      Birds flit,

      Twitter,

      Sit like notes on the staffs

      Of the scores of the bare branches.

      All is on the verge.

      On the ridge-tops, blue surges,

      Scattering bibulous cloud

      Hung over from night.

      Blue strides down the green valley,

      Embracing the willows,

      Lovely in light gowns,

      Shaking their tresses,

      Their lemon tresses,

      Laughing in welcome.

      Across the hills, meanwhile,

      Like salt grains on baize cloth,

      Sheep graze solemnly,

      And the Charolais cattle,

      Sculpted in chalk,

      Stand motionless,

      Outside of time.

      The Bowl

      Under light, O bowl, paint for me,

      By dahlias and peaches interposed,

      The coral edges of a tropical sea.

      Reflect your maker’s Maker’s merriment

      At costumes lent by fruits and blooms

      To your curvaceous finery.

      Your colors whoop like schoolgirls out of class;

      Like twinned lips of lovers pulled close

      By beauty’s sweet force,

      They quiver.

      I nudge the glass,

      The water stirs.

      The sea on beaches at the world’s end sloshes,

      The lovers sway among the blossoms.

      Ocean sighs.

      Late sun dyes the bowl vermilion.

      I jar the glass again.

      Creatures spring to life, myriad.

      “Father, the circus is in town—

      Can we go?”

      We skip all the way.

      Why, this is creation!

      The world’s being born!

      Elephants stomp through purple dahlias,

      Tigers pad on beds of peaches,

      Jesters quilt the glass with motley—

      Shalom!

      Your rim, O bowl, marks out the planet’s edge;

      Your oceans breed whales;

      Your womb is great with clouds and plants and beasts;

      In your depths nebulae gleam.

      O bowl, sun-bearer, in you

      Light figures the invisible.

      Your harmonics paint

      Heavenly frescoes;

      In your radiance

      Alpha echoes Omega.

      Shalom

      Art

      Art is given to hint at depths

      Beyond the shallow pools

      We spend our lives in,

      Dull fools,

      Mincing like waders when we might sprint

      And plunge into the sea!

      What is that deep sea?

      The sweep of foam down a wave’s face

      Pictures unsolicited grace

      Rolling from eternity

      To cover broken time.

      The puffed cloud’s rhyme,

      With chestnut trees

      That caparison summer hills

      And garrison the ripening fields,

      Points to sublime structures of creation.

      All speaks of relation,

      Transformation,

      Of inherent links

      Binding galaxies to the pinks

      That flower on the wall outside my house.

      God’s grand art above

      Crafts these paradigms:

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