Endings
Derek Walcott, 1930-2017, Saint Lucian

 

 

 

 

Things do not explode,
they fail, they fade,

as sunlight fades from the flesh,
as the foam drains quick in the sand,

 

 

 

even love’s lightning flash
has no thunderous end,

it dies with the sound
of flowers fading like the flesh

 

 

 

 

from sweating pumice stone,
everything shapes this

till we are left
with the silence that surrounds Beethoven’s head.

 

 

 

Going and Return, oil on tin and carved bas-relief. 

Susan Lowry, American born 1953.  Woodmere Museum of Art, Philadelphia

 

 

 

The header photo is a large plate:

Clouds, stoneware with slip inlay and trailed glaze design made in 1991 by Shimaoka Tatsuzo,  1919-2007, Japanese. 

Windows in the central vault of the Metropolitan Museum, NY are reflected on this work.