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| Les Noisettes (1882) William-Adolphe Bouguereau (1825-1905) |
I lead a monthly writing group at Northland Public Library in McCandless, PA. It is an assignment-based group where I give prompts and we share our stories, poems, etc. when we meet the next month. The prompt for March's meeting was to write about the painting, Les Noisettes (The Nut-Gatherers) by William-Adolphe Bouguereau. One of the writers presented the following poem, which I describe as no less than brilliant. D.M. Lovic is an amazingly-gifted writer and by the time he was done reading this poem, I was in tears. It speaks to much of what I struggle with in modern society. See if it speaks to you as well. Please leave your thoughts for Dave in the comment section below.
Thoughts
on a Painting by Bouguereau
To
innocence, we bid farewell, its brilliant bloom now dims and sets:
Resigned to
pictures framed and hung, assigned to times the world forgets.
The girls in
ribboned elegance, the boys in crisp, suspendered pants,
The passive
pace of Sunday strolls, two lovers holding noble hands,
The
stillness of the summer sun, some gathered nuts, an impish grin,
Delights the
childish hope inside; betrays the times we’re living in
Where smoky
streets that web the globe are clamoring, are never still.
With spite
we dream of painted scenes we’ve never known and never will.
Then, seeking
to illuminate the secrets in the artist’s mind,
We choose
the pen of present life to color what we find:
The girls,
so elegant, are ribboned as a guise for prurient tastes;
Suspendered
boys who seek to lead, by definition are debased;
The Sunday pace
is onerous, the price of angry-God commands;
The lovers have
ignoble thoughts of what to do with idle hands.
And even
girls reclined on paths are just personas, wearing masks
That hide
the crooked souls within, that lead them to the devil’s tasks.
The heart
bereft, the Knights entombed. This narrative we tell the youth
Reveals effects
we welcomed in and speaks to us an awful truth:
In spite of
“progress,” this our curse, our cynicism and our thief --
That simple
scenes provoke the worst in supposition and belief.
Through modern
eyes we view the joyful essence of the human soul
As twisted,
dark and seeking sin instead of being whole.
It cannot be
as pure as she and she with nuts and smiles shared.
An era’s
gone. That simple scene is ever altered and impaired.
For
evermore, we’re apt to read the complication of the years
Into the
softer, simpler times until they’ve disappeared.
And so a
picnic in the mead, or sleeping in late-summer wheat,
An autumn
walk in forest glade, a cycle ride through tree-lined streets,
A gathering
of nuts with friends, a twilight crowd for childhood games
Are best
enjoyed in galleries, with canvas, paint and golden frames
Where moth
and rust cannot destroy, where visitors will be inclined
To keep
alive the innocence, if only in the mind.
* * *
DM Lovic has spent years honing his writing craft in relative obscurity.
In total fear of the outside world and of receiving rejection letters
from 20 year-old, bean-counting, summer interns, he has barely entered
his work in any competition. He's written numerous screenplays,
musicals, songs and poems, yet his novel-length epic poem for teens
entitled "The Curse of the Grey Faerie" (likely the work he was born to
write) remains 80% complete.
He lives in Springdale, PA with his wife,
Alane, daughter, Emma, and sons, Jude and Eli, whose affections are, in
truth, his greatest achievement.
