Homage to Rackham and Dulac, by Ruth Asch

The Valiant Little Tailor, by Arthur Rackham (UK), 1908.

Homage to Rackham and Dulac  

We poets like to write of paint,                              
Teach canvasses to talk;
Illustrators feel an urge
To highlight words with chalk;
Magnify the squirming letters
Through clear artist's eye;
Fix upon the leaf                                         
A writer's land, a poet's sky.

When first we looked upon a page
Below our mother's face,
Saw the world of fairytale
Through one small square space;
As we grew brave to venture
Through volumes on our own -                    
Imagination flourished
From seeds artists had sown.

So in a few poor printed words 
'Tis time to give due back
To fairy-godfathers of mine:
Rackham and Dulac.
They blazed a trail into the realm
Where Truth meets Fantasy - 
Prisms beautiful and strange
That others, too, might see.

Rackham's is a world of dream:
Dark, delicate, uncanny.
Fathomless each pool of ink,
Full of sprites each cranny.
Colours distressed: lilac, fawn
Pale-scarlet and sage.
Lines bewitched: so spirited
They must jump from the page.

Dulac's noble temperament
Gives each form subtle grace;
The princess or the monster
Love or power in a trace.   
Colours deep, enchanting:
Gold and ebony and teal.
The mythic, the folk-loric
Living through his zeal.

While authors speak for artefacts
Or make a statue sing,
Illustrators bless the eye
And paint the phoenix' wing.
Venture into literature
Before the world condemns -
Capture like a bluebird                                                              
The writer's fleeting gems.
                                              
Ruth Asch

Ruth Asch is a poet in rare moments when tranquility and inspiration co-incide. She is also the mother of four and sometimes a teacher. Her first book of poems 'Reflections' was published in 2009, and poems since in many journals on and off line such as Inkspill, Meditteranean Poetry, The Bamboo Hut, Poetry Repairs, Poetry Atlas and The Literary Yard.

The Arabian Nights, by Edmund Dulac (UK, b. France), 1908.