Dr. Mary K. Lindberg holds a doctorate in English Literature from New York University and Oxford; she studied piano at Eastman School of Music. She has published scholarly articles on William Hogarth and the London theatre, from 1970 to 2004, as well as poems in the United States and Canada since the 1970’s. Most recently, her poem “Dance of Atoms,” which won a Grand Prize in the 2021 Dancing Poetry Contest, will be published in Evening Street Review (2022). Others include “After Dark After Restoration: in Gallery&Studio (2021),” Goya’s Portrait of Ferrer” Beloit Poetry Journal, (2006), and others appeared in the Poets of the Vineyard Newsletter (May 2021).
I wrestle with you
across a century or two —
romance, breakup; forte, piano.
Are you glad when I sit down
to play your C-sharp minor Waltz?
What were you thinking of at the keyboard —
that girl you saw out the window
strolling in Warsaw’s conservatory garden,
sheen of ivory satin under her parasol,
black lace glimpsed behind a smile?
What do you yearn for, Chopin?
The light of Poland that blinds exiles?
The fire of promised passion in Paris,
ignited by gliding over air in dance, from
delicate grace to frenzied whirling waltz?
Your textures lie deep in the keys;
the music, a Byzantine mosaic.
Beaten gold tops your runs, a leaf tiptoes
into phrase. I touch black and white
to break your silence.
I yearn for a lesson with you, Fryderyk,
the way I long to hear my mother’s voice.
I’d ask what you intended.
Would you say, I left the music —
isn’t that enough?
After dark Matisse’s black-eyed courtesan,
arrayed in green, yellow and ivory silk,
spends evenings alone, pining for the young
Hunter in storage. Across the gallery Picasso’s
Harlequin gossips about the museum’s
newly-acquired Roman soldiers.
One night he calls out: The Greek is back!
She smiles, uncoils her tresses,
points red silk shoes, tiptoes out of oil,
descends soundlessly to the Greek
galleries on the first floor.
The pedestaled youth knows her touch
on his marble sandal. Finger walking his ankle,
she asks, What’s it like to be conserved? He inhales.
Nothing like this. I am rejuvenated; my body hums.
I missed you —no talk, no scent — no nothing.
At his calf she inquires, Do you think those Roman
matrons nearby will brew another scandal about us?
Not a chance, the toned youth mumbles,
distracted as her hair tickles his feet.
The new burly, curly-haired studs
will keep them busy.
How like the Romans! she responds,
resting her head against his newly-dusted
thigh. I missed you. Shall we try
the Etruscan Chariot? Rusty but romantic.
Balcony first — for old times’ sake.
He steps down, freshly smoothed
limbs full of Grecian charms.
I’m glad you’re back, she sighs,
falling with delight into
his perfectly-restored arms.
*Published in Gallery&Studio August 2021
He does not lie down to paint
but stands on arched steps he designed
sixty feet high, laying on saffron or
lavender to grace a sibyl’s robe.
At night he hides scaffolding
from the Pope the way drapery
hugs his prophets’ huge knees.
One morning his brush weaves
over an incised head and profile,
limns lips with gray, red,
models nostrils, chin, and
a full moon of dark iris
that inquires who am I,
what am I going to be.
His later strokes assure
the hairline bends to eyebrow curve.
He thinks about the two hands.
Will they touch? stop in midair?
Next day the first man unfurls from paint
he way Eve would rise from his rib.
Adam’s hand extends to his creator,
whose beard and locks the artist
daubs with charred ivory.
Between their suspended fingers
the world is spawned in frescoed air.
I can place my thumb in that space,
Michelangelo thinks.
*First Published in the Tang of Glue
Why do patches of paint
and glaze challenge us?
Figures, abstractions aren’t alive
until we gaze at them.
Do they think about us
as much as we ponder
their colors, lines, meaning?
What if we asked them to eye us?
What would they reflect on
as they inspect our stained veneer?
Would they trust smiles, or be skeptical, the way we suspect their artful wiles?
Can they sense the dance
of disappointments in time-woven skin,
The cavern of a heart broken
by absence, remorse, or worse?
Would they finger the tangled yarn
beyond our steady gaze, the way we linger,
edge up close to peer at their pearly oils?
Do they want us to gape until we sense
what they will never reveal?
We too seal secrets behind open eyes,
make ourselves a work of art every day.
The artist keeps figures, lines, colors, mute,
knows we’ll stalk intent. Revels in aloofness —
doesn’t care what we think. Without our ogling,
frames of illusion won’t attract immortality.
At the end of our show, we’ll disintegrate,
stripped of luminous sheath.
Artworks will remain, a little cracked,
magnetic eyes full of our afterglow.
