Sunday, February 07, 2010

On Some Drawings By Seurat

Just what the hand can gesture at, not grasp,

The always-escaping tantalising line,

Bare and pure...

The artist, left to his own devices.

The solitary pencil.

What can four fingers and a thumb

Cut out of the air?

Hand, shaper of flints,

Spear-launcher,

Feeling, appreciating

Nothingness.

This is devotion.


Stroking and honing

Light to dark to light,

Working with the paper’s tooth,

The texture of shadow.

Figures coalesece, emerge

Out of the black whiteness,

Tone on tone,

Without edges,

Modulating a music

Finer and lighter than life.

A Möbius strip.


Particles colliding in space,

Substance shading out...

Is this evidence of substance

Or emptiness?

Marks on paper,

Waves in water,

In sand.

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