EDWARD HOPPER (1882-1967)

Blink and you could miss them:

The detached clapperboard houses

By the rail tracks, the lighthouses,

An occasional blue flash of sea,

The sunlit meadows and rooftops,

Gas stations and lonely roads,

The drug-stores and diners,

Theatres, offices and hotel rooms

Where figures gaze into space or read.

You glimpse them caught between

The shadows and light that fall

In an implacable geometry

Around the heavy angles

Of half-shuttered windows,

And empty sunbeaten streets.

And the women on beds and balconies:

You will note them there, waiting

In various states of dress and undress,

In doorways, at windows and on trains,

Where the light finds them out,

But you can only guess at their stories.

The skies are always bright and blue

In a world forever poised and dreaming;

Except for a rare breeze on a curtain,

Stillness presides over everything,

Inside and outside, in town and country,

And a certain echoing silence prevails,

Whilst the deep woodlands wait

At the edge of everyday things,

Dark and patient and mysterious.

(2012)

Inspired by a visit to a Hopper exhibition at the London Tate Gallery. As with all of these poems about painters, it was hard to settle on a single image to go with the text, there being so many that I like. This one is called 'Cape Cod Morning'.