Poems by Laima Vincė
Paintings are used with permission from the Ogunquit Museum of American Art, Ogunquit, Maine
Séance, 1948
Stephen Hopkins Hensel (1921-1979)
The Medium (in her own voice)
I see you.
I see within you
Around you
Beyond you.
My hazel eyes
Circle round and round
Like spirals, vortexes,
Into the Beyond.
My peacock shawl,
My red-striped scarf,
Are not simply apparel,
Nor coverings for warmth…
No, they are interstellar
Highways into the Spirit World.
The blue comb atop my head
Holds it all in.
One single stray curl
Adorns my forehead—
It is but a foil,
A distraction
Protecting my third eye,
The one you do not see,
But which sees you,
Through you, around you.
My rosy cheeks,
My puckered lips,
My narrow knowing nose,
Are spiritual apparatus.
Vapors mist
Around my massive body,
Voluptuous, voluminous,
Solid, ethereal.
My feet are tiny,
The divine feminine.
My arms powerful,
Hands expressive, fingers flexible.
Those stars on my dress?
They are not patterning, no!
Each is a ghostly angel, a guide,
Whispering knowledge into my delicate ears,
Knowledge just for you,
For you alone, my dear…
Alaskan Sunrise
Rockwell Kent (1882-1971)
Resurrection Bay
Light resurrects,
As life does,
After a dark night of the soul.
Mauve, pink, purple tones
Slowly ascend white peaks,
Sending echoes of shadow
Into gray ravines
Highlighted by
Pink peaks.
Pale turquoise,
Air scrubbed clean
By cold northern sub-arctic skies.
Deep blue waters
Patterned with indigo,
Stillness upon stillness.
Such is the dance of light
On this morning in 1919
When Rockwell Kent was here.
Sleeping Girl, 1922
Walt Kuhn (1877-1949)
The Sleeping Girl
Her feet were killing her,
Casualties of the trade,
Vaudeville, all perfect time,
High kicks and tap.
Exhausted sleep does not chase
The sweetness from her face, innocence.
Her short-cropped bob flops to one side.
“Never forget to smile,” they told her.
“Smile through the pain.”
Or “never mind the pain.”
Or better, “you are dispensable, just a dancer…”
Nonetheless, collapsed in sleep
Her smile vanishes.
Her mother’s nagging modesty ensures
She clutches her shawl, never relaxing her grasp.
The green curtain,
The harsh white light
Hitting her back—
Light unnatural.
She had the foresight to snag a pillow
To prop up her head—
Caught between performances
For those with the strength
To rally deep into the night.
Where did she learn to dance to abandon:
On the tenement streets of Williamsburg,
On Chicago’s South Side, in Philly.
The usual immigrant haunts.
Her costume is skimpy,
Though not her soul.
Respect her
For she dances for you.
Lavender, 1942
Lee Krasner
I wouldn’t Call it Lavender
I wouldn’t call it lavender—
For me, that color is mauve…
But that’s just semantics,
The essence is in the curves—
Lavender into black,
Piercing it through,
Emerging on the other side—
A dagger, a wound.
Or perhaps a broken heart?
Lavender’s heart.
Lavender props up the painting
From the bottom right,
Yet black locks it in,
Kitty-corner,
Like streets in New York City
And all the meaning they carry.
Blue the color of the New York sky
You only see in September
(once the air has cooled, crisp and clean)
Fills the background,
Just like blue sky darts out
From the cracks between tall buildings.
White, the vintage only seen in the first hours
After snow has fallen,
Before it turns to gray,
Occupies three panes,
If you see the painting
As a view through a window—
New York City eyes to the sky.
Oh lavender, you bring color
Into a colorless world.
I, like you, Lee, am first generation born in New York.
I know the shame of a father’s heavy accent
Falling on American ears.
I know a grandparent’s foreign ways.
The colors and the shapes
and the flat equalizing plane
Takes us away
From the noise of language,
And judgment.
You see what you see,
And there is no more.
