Sunday, March 22, 2015

Cloisonné

Joy flecked with garnet or with turquoise;
grief that persists; after every iteration 
the distress is deeper laid.
I find that I have less and less to say. 

The anger subsides, and the past takes on an air 
of inevitability. But that's what the past does:
 its face enamels into mask. Historians 
make their living by demonstrating why

everything had to happen just the way it did: 
armies of apology. Until, if you're not attending closely, 
you decide that everything that was awful 
is okay. An excuse of cloisonné: 

bruise and blood turn into mosaic, 
little bits of blue and scarlet glass.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

So lovely to find your words again. It's been forever but they twinkle like familiure stars.

Gabrielle

Dale said...

thank you so much! xo

Lucy said...

I just wrote a long and not necessarily apposite comment to this, then lost it! But the cloisonné image is perfect: horror and sumptuousness. And

'...the past takes on an air
of inevitability. But that's what the past does'

I don't make cloisonné out of my own history though, either way, it seems a bit too paltry. Probably just as well.

Dale said...

Oh no! I don't want to lose any Lucy comments, and the less apposite, probably the greater the loss!