Judy Kronenfeld
Unfinished Painting
—Norham Castle, Sunrise, J.M.W.Turner
The lemony sun, freshly
juiced, in the air,
its mirror-glow—melting butter
in the shallow pan
of the lake. Earth, heavens,
waters, barely
divided.
A human construction on the right vaporized
to the vaguest taupe, the castle itself only blue
smoke thickening into a suggestion
of deeply indented cliffs.
Only one solidity, a cow splotched
with silky brown—the others on the shore
after her kind yet to materialize.
Head down, she laps water-earth-sky,
seeming to siphon off the possibility
of colors deepening, as if to keep
the sixth day of the world
from being complete.
___
First published in The Ekphrastic Review, May 2, 2016. http://www.ekphrastic.net/ekphrastic/unfinished-painting-by-judy-kronenfel
https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-norham-castle-sunrise-n01981l
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