This poem was inspired by a photo of Matisse by Henri Cartier Bresson, although it mentions the work shown above as well. To see the photo, click below: https://www.magnumphotos.com/arts-culture/art/studio-matisse-henri-cartier-bresson/ Palomas Matisse examines the captive dove while others look on from atop their cages. They're like uncertain spectators bound to serve the game of art. The painter's palm wraps around the fragile form of their companion-- it's the hand that also feeds them. Once, when the church he didn't believe in offered a job for the Chapel of Venice, the same hand sent them off to young Picasso. The elder wished his studio free for invention. A bird with wings outflung and beak holding colourful flowers flew into Pablo's famous poster for Advocates of Peace, that Stalinist bunch he quit when Soviet tanks rolled in to quell the Hungarian rebellion. "We will no longer remain slaves," they'd protested, explaining why Matisse had never joined the communists in the first place: ideology another cage. Still. Did the doves feel unchained when they got to Picasso's studio? Did he, embracing his elder's winged Muses? Did Matisse, leaving his bedbound form to fly into the dark unguarded space he'd sought through art he wished as "a soothing, calming influence on the mind," find anything like that liberty when he flew the coop? Picasso was désolé: "When one of us dies, there are things the other will not be able to say." His tribute painting in the style of Matisse placed doves in cubes on the periphery while two birds perched on the sill, reluctant to rise and fly, as if they were still conversing. Lisa Norris Lisa Norris is a professor emeritus of English at Central Washington University in Ellensburg, WA. She grew up in Virginia Beach, VA, and taught for 15 years at Virginia Tech. Her prize-winning story collections are Toy Guns (Helicon Nine Press, 2000) and Women Who Sleep With Animals (Stephen F. Austin State Univ. Press, 2010). Her poems and nonfiction have appeared in Willow Springs, Shenandoah, Ascent, Fourth Genre, Terrain.Org., Bullets Into Bells, Gulf Stream, and others.
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The Ekphrastic Review
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February 2025
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