After Chagall’s Paris Through the Window, by Bill Caldwell

Paris Through the Window, by Marc Chagall (France, b. Belarus) 1913

After Chagall’s Paris Through the Window  
                           
Paris is askew. The Eiffel Tower extends beyond the painting. It’s glossed in a white light that emanates from a nearby pyramid. How can that be?—it’s not Egypt, not Mexico. A parachutist glides through a stormy sky. Where will it land in this city of steeples and narrow streets? Perhaps those are mountains in the shape of pyramids and the parachutist could glide, I suppose, to a mountain side. By his window, sits a two-sided Chagall, on one side a blue face cries pink tears, his other side, pale. He hints at the interior to his apartment: an empty chair; flowers arranged in a burnished pot, his window open to a dusky gold. On the window-sill, on its haunches, squats a cat. The cat’s face is similar to Chagall’s—big ears, sad eyes, sharp nose. Chagall plants himself nearby with claws instead of hands. The window must let in a breeze; electricity must charge the air. Chagall and his cat watch the sky. Greens. Pinks. Blues. Their ears perked up, a parachute falling from the sky; they must hear its flutter. And what is it about those two dark pedestrians? Who could they be, that man and women painted flat black? Although, she has a small swab of blue and the man a thin blue walking stick that doesn’t touch the ground, doesn’t support anything. Together they float in the dreamy space. Lower left, is an up-side down train. Does it chug backwards toward Vitebsk? A dark blue volcano blows pink smoke. Turned one way Paris is a lively sky, while in another turn there are nightmares, pogroms, longing, and a war that will soon shatter the world.    

Bill Caldwell

Bill Caldwell and his husband enjoy life in Asheville N.C. Bill is a retired nurse and marriage and family therapist. He says he’s not a dessert person until he spies a scope of ice cream. He walks his dog Stella in the nearby mountains, tends his compost pile, plays in his yard planting plants and moving rocks. His poems have been heard on KAXE radio, and published in Artemis, Kakalak, and The Smokies Review.