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19 Aug 2024
Carolyn
Martin
Full Moon
Thirteen Ways of
Looking at Haystacks
After Wallace Stevens’ Thirteen Ways of
Looking at a Blackbird and Claude Monet’s
famous ‘Haystacks’ paintings
I
Through a needle’s eye:
one golden sheaf of drooping wheat.
II
After cataract surgery:
fields beyond a haystack
clarify, but I cannot
see my notebook’s scribblings.
III
On a winter morning,
the supreme fiction:
two whole wheat muffins
in a field frosted white.
IV
In mizzling dawn,
light mutes itself:
the impression of fog.
V
When sun argues with snow
en plein air, nuance wins.
VI
How far is inspiration?
Two miles to a haystack field,
one stroll around my cul-de-sac.
VII
How many shadows does it take
to insinuate the season
or the artist’s vantage point?
VIII
I prefer the inkling
of light to its blinding reality.
IX
To rise at 3:30am
to catch ephemera:
the holy hush of sacrifice.
X
Not one blackbird is flying over
a wheelbarrow full of canvases.
XI
No tigers in red weather.
Mere mounds of barley
stored against an autumn sky.
XII
When paint needs drying time,
haystacks acquiesce
to golden discs on a lily pond.
XIII
How many haystacks dance
on a needle’s head?
As many as an artist
can orchestrate.
Behind the poem...
This poem is really the work of three artists: Wallace Stevens for his Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird, Claude Monet for his paintings of haystacks, and me. What unites us in my ekphrastic poem is the idea of different ways of seeing. In the cases of Stevens and Monet, their perceptions are made plain in their respective works. For myself, it was delight after cataract surgery meant I could see again over distances that had previously been blurry – the need for reading glasses for close-up work a small price to pay.