Centers of Gold
after “Aplebaum” by Gustav Klimt
The point, after all, with canvas, brush, and paint,
isn’t it to beguile the viewer’s eye, to cause
this moment, these minutes, of pausing?
All for what, she wonders. To gaze, then look
again, to be lifted up out of the self, until one
joins what she looks at. What is it? The tree
barely distinct from what surrounds it, the trunk
slowly taking shape as a vertical skeleton, with fruit,
apples, of no variety she’s known, everywhere bright
and laden, drooping at the ends of branches.
In the middle ground, a meadow where, yellow, tall,
two drifts of common dandelion sway knee high.
The foreground’s a riot of cosmos: pink, white,
crimson, and burgundy, some with centers of gold.
She refuses to move from the spot, a wooden bench
where she sits alert, leaning in. There it is—
a shadow under the boughs. It had to be there,
the darkened place, beauty’s attendant cost.
PATRICIA CLARK is the author of six volumes of poetry, including Sunday Rising, The Canopy, and most recently Self Portrait with a Million Dollars. Read more.
“Centers of Gold” first appeared in Plume.