30 Poems in 30 Days

30 Poems in 30 Days
NaPoWriMo
A Project for National Poetry Writing Month

Monday, April 23, 2012

Day 23 An Ekphrastic Poem

I recently got to see some of the pieces from The Phillips Collection at the Frist Center for the Visual Arts in Nashville.  A work by John Sloan, Six O'Clock, Winter, is the source for this poem.

Sloan's Pathos

No one sees the darkening sky at six o’clock winter
above the El, blue not-machine and bluer applique
of cloud. Correction: we do.    
                                                                  They do not, those
fleshy smudges at the bottom of the canvas whom we imagine
human and hurrying home to supper, glancing up at windows
yellowed against that familiar cusp of coming dark
bound to catch them, us.