This late afternoon the house across our street is
an Edward Hopper, its sure, sharp surfaces
outlined in flat western sun. I tend to see
Picasso in the slides at the kids’ play park,
Monet along the waterfront–
a reddish boat and clouds tossing.
Sunday, a breast-feeding mom and infant in
the church nursery shape-shift into a holy icon.
Along a dirt road through a green Skagit valley
I have glimpsed a Corot,
and a Klimt’s Woman in Gold through
a high-end clothes store window downtown.
That light dancing from the rock along
the waterfront is pure Brancusi, and
on the inside of my closed eye-lids Damien Hirst
shows up in bright spots.
And there in the church pew, a Bellingham street person
poses for Rembrandt’s Prodigal Son.
Tomorrow, I’ll watch for Matisse, Pollock, Mondrian, Koons
to reveal themselves. Or not. You never know.
Look, it’s not like I’m reducing their work into
frames with four corners. They are electric,
too singular to be rigidly trapped
in a museum interior or a living-room wall.
My surroundings answer my scrutiny, glance
back, see in me a mirror,
as if we are partners in dialog about what
to make of the world.
Luci Shaw was born in London in 1928 and has lived in Australia and Canada. A poet and essayist, since 1986 she has been writer-in-residence at Regent College, Vancouver. Author of over thirty-five books of poetry and non-fiction prose, her writing has appeared in numerous literary and religious journals. In 2013 she received the 10th annual Denise Levertov Award for Creative Writing from Seattle Pacific University. Her most recent publications are Adventure of Ascent: Field Notes from a Life-long Journey (2014), The Thumbprint in the Clay (2016), and Sea Glass: New & Selected Poems (2016). She lives in Bellingham, WA. For further information, visit www.lucishaw.com.