On Seurat's The Channel of Gravelines
We know even before we read the laminate placard
that this place nests near the seaside: how?
The boat perhaps; or that flag, whipped too
turbulent-high for this wind not to be coastal.
And this village will never be wholly itself,
submits half of what it might be to some
beyond-roar, its foreshortened fields
too sodden-salty, we feel, for inland crops.
All these things – but most of all, we know from the light.
That tranche of sky is ghostly-pale, ceding colour
to sidewise lengths of tumbling-across air;
whilst the land tapers off, refusing to be lit,
unless it be spikily lit, as waves are.
The canvas says, “I am oceanlight. Praise me.”
Page(s) 33
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