Poetry Thursday #13

This week's challenge is ekphrasis, "a literary description of or commentary on a visual work of art." The painting I have chosen for this week’s completely optional idea is "The Marriage License," painted for the June 11, 1955 Saturday Evening Post by Norman Rockwell, who did 322 covers and died in 1978. No one mastered in art the American life, events and values better than he. Now if you are an artist purist and don't think Rockwell be one, check out this painting of a bride by Domenico Ghirlandaio (15th century) and you'll see the same attention to fabrics, hair, position of the faces, locale and eyes gazing into the past.

There is nothing in this painting that isn’t absolutely authentic or essential, from the dangling light bulb repeating the shape of the upper window needed for heat or light, to the rumpled forgotten flag or bunting possibly from WWII that lays unceremoniously atop the book shelves filled with dusty legal volumes, to the bride and groom who knew this was a special occasion requiring the very best clothes. The items in the painting that are completely out-of-step with the 50s, like the stove and spittoon, are critical elements in the story it tells. We all know the hopes and dreams of that couple, because they are us in another time and place, so I've chosen to write about the civil servant slumped in his chair.

At the County Courthouse
by Norma Bruce
March 28, 2007

Dreaming of fishing again, aren't you, old man?
Your rumpled coat and hat hang near by,
just waiting for your escape.

The red geranium blooms in the open window alone,
scrawny but surviving the weather whims,
seeking light and warmth.

Now that the wife has died, the stray kitten
eyeing the cigarette litter on the floor
is your only source of joy.

Your arthritic fingers interlace, worn elbows rest
on the arms of the old wooden chair,
your bones beating the cushion down.

Ah, those weary bones, you squirm and shift,
oh, so tired. Slumped, you're forgetting
the stories, oh, the stories.

Who are these eager people, in sunny yellow cotton
and Sunday suit with hat, signing on for years
of windows, weather, and weariness?

Like the bride on tip toes and her tender groom,
we want their hope and love, so we turn away
from the old man's defeat and pessimism.