By RACHEL HADAS
The old woman with the art
paces through her silent rooms,
sunlight reflecting off the frames.
Adult children live downstairs
in the basement. Whose is the art?
Is it the world’s or hers or theirs?
Sunlight moves across the wall.
Rosenquist, Rauschenberg, Marisol
prints, flat and deadpan, do not say
how to live from day to day.
Four Wolf Kahn landscapes give back light
and air, hay-scented. What is art?
What fills the frame, then empties out,
is kept by giving it away.
Take the paintings off the wall.
Open the door and let them all
find homes in some imagined place.
Motion and change. No sacrifice.
Rachel Hadas‘s many books of poetry, essays, and translations include, most recently, a collection of short prose pieces, Pastorals. Professor emerita of English at Rutgers University–Newark and the recipient of many honors and awards, she divides her time between New York City and Vermont.
