Tonight we'll be celebrating again (happily enough with both new and old friends) on the occasion of the Suffolk Arts Center's new exhibit where 3 of Marissa's orchid paintings will be on display. So I thought it would be a good idea to dig out the old poem, dust it off and see if I could refurbish it in light of new facts and circumstances of our lives. Usually I don't like to rewrite older poems but this one is slightly different because I knew at the time I first wrote it that I hadn't gotten it quite right. More than that, love and marriage is certainly best understood as a perpetual work in progress so it is in that spirit that I offer up these revisions.
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What an Artist Knows
for Marissa
What
an artist knows
She knows in the flesh
With each turn of her wrist
Each inspiration and breath
She iterates space
With a knowing caress
Eyes open or closed
There’s joy in her bones
Or the sudden most sorrow
May stipple her marrow
So that come what tomorrow
The surer her vision grows
As with the tip of a brush
She enraptures the rose
And captures swift life
As it ebbs and it flows
Through all the harmonics
Of laughter and shade
Until by means
Still more enigmatic
She knows in the flesh
With each turn of her wrist
Each inspiration and breath
She iterates space
With a knowing caress
Eyes open or closed
There’s joy in her bones
Or the sudden most sorrow
May stipple her marrow
So that come what tomorrow
The surer her vision grows
As with the tip of a brush
She enraptures the rose
And captures swift life
As it ebbs and it flows
Through all the harmonics
Of laughter and shade
Until by means
Still more enigmatic
From
garden to pallet
She
learns to transcribe
The orchid’s tuneful lyric
Onto the petals strewn
The orchid’s tuneful lyric
Onto the petals strewn
Beside
and below
Restoring us into
Intimate contact
Restoring us into
Intimate contact
With
beauty in its
Timeline
aspect
Of
the radiance that endures
Even
as each blossom
Comes
and goes
* * * * * *
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| Marissa Bridge from The Journey #22 |
This is one of the paintings from Marissa's new series called The Journey which chronicles the life cycle of an orchid in in bloom. You can see more of these incredible images on her website here.
(You can also read the earlier version my poem here.)
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