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Harry Guest

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History of Art

Art
like alchemy
waits for the full harvest

Smooth wheat
flowing pale and silent
‘into the storage jars

The smith with scorched hands
tempers the hot bronze
and the masked priest
dances among the fiery leaves

Leisure to trace
the twig across wet clay
the settling not the solving of the problem
time to attend

Whine of a swan’s wing
across the flat spaces of the estuary
or sudden
orange on the swerving kingfisher

Waiting for waves
to cover the thorns of limestone
or adapting the prophecies
of the night sky
into triangles and legends

When the grain is threshed
and the fruit is gathered in
when the animals have bred
and the stockade’s been secured
images may be carved
of things that never were
or the bright deer painted

Now is the time
to mix lead with sulphur
and from the cooling ash
draw the dry useless gold

 

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