All There Is To Say “A painter can say all he wants to with fruit . . . .” Edouard Manet or even vegetables, these crinkly-skinned onions on a kitchen table, painted by Cézanne. What did he want to tell us about their many layers, their astringent flesh, pungent breath, thin skins? Was it the way they could fill a plate, nestle in a table cloth, look like they belonged there, eggs in a nest? Or how they add depth to a stew or a bouillabaisse without becoming the thing itself, like the notes in a chord, or the blue wash that’s part of the undercoat, part of the shadow. Unlike other still lifes, these onions are living: green shoots burst out their tops, electric, wired, a green dance of new growth. Green flames singing in the hearth. Green fingers shooting for the sun. What else could he want to say, except that every thing on this small blue ball is alive, these papery globes, the throat of the wine bottle, the billions of molecules that make up my skin and yours, the air between our lips, charged with energy, the cells that slough off when they touch, when we love. Barbara Crooker This poem first appeared in Barbara Crooker's book, Radiance (Word Press, 2005.) Barbara Crooker is the author of many books of poetry; The Book of Kells is the most recent. Her work has appeared in numerous anthologies, including The Bedford Introduction to Literature, Commonwealth: Contemporary Poets on Pennsylvania, The Poetry of Presence and Nasty Women: An Unapologetic Anthology of Subversive Verse. www.barbaracrooker.com
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The Ekphrastic Review
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February 2025
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