Wedding

first published in 1996 in The Thing in the Gap Stone Stile

 

Alice Oswald, British born 1966  

 

 

 

 

From time to time our love is like a sail

and when the sail begins to alternate

from tack to tack,

 

View from Ship, c. 1932, oil on canvas. 

Jan Matulka, 1890-1972, American born Czech Republic. ?Whitney Museum of N. American Art, NY   

                                                

                                         it’s like a swallowtail

 

Swallowtail butterfly feeding on plox. Mt. Cuba Center, Hockessin, DE

 

 

and when the swallow flies it’s like a coat;

and if the coat is yours, it has a tear

like a wide mouth and when the mouth begins

to draw the wind, it’s like a trumpeter

 

 

and when the trumpet blows, it blows like millions

 

…

 

and this, my love, when millions come and go

beyond the need of us, is like a trick;

and when the trick begins, it’s like a toe

 

 

 

Tight-Rope Walker, c.1885, oil on canvas. 

Jean-Louis Forain, 1852-1931, French.  Art Institute of Chicago loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY in 2017

 

 

tip-toeing on a rope, which is like luck;

and when the luck begins, it’s like a wedding,

which is like love, which is like everything.

 

 

 

 

Railroaded, 2018, digital print mounted on aluminum. 

Alison Walls (no other information). On display at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia in 2019 in a joint exhibition:  Women’s Mobile Museum about the experience of women in exile. 

 

 

The Morning Bride, 2016, pigmented inkjet print.

Aida Muluneh, Ethiopian born 1974. MOMA, NY