Red in Six Sections, by Nolan Meditz

Vir Heroicus Sublimis, by Barnett Newman (USA). 1950-51.

Red in Six Sections
        
I
The simplest observation is this:
there is little sublimity in division,
but proximity facilitates immersion.
It is not the image we will leave
this world or its future inhabitants.
History does not rummage
through the glories, only ruins remain.

II
Standing before you is the shade of my transgressions.
Of depth and enormity and fracture
of subtleties in monochrome.
Plasticity, verisimilitude, invention
by right ought to fade
a presence with no context save the making.
I will never admit to expansion.

III
It’s never as easy as field and figure
when the plane itself—though not
the object—aggresses. Sublimity
is our mother tongue, our source
of fundamental recollection—countless
brushstrokes publish wonder, negate
by accumulation. There you are again,
on the other side of a red field
that denies direction. I refuse
to diminish our separation.
I refuse to bring these barriers down.

IV
The simplest observation is this:
there is nothing to read
and any stride toward the heroic
sublime necessarily begins a blemish
on an otherwise pristine canvas.
What would have been had we
left this world unaffected.

V
What is the point
of a monument that outlives
its observers? Why not leave
a footprint in sand?

VI
The bridge exceeds the span
of land it calls its destination.

Nolan Meditz

​Nolan Meditz was born and raised on Long Island. He received his MFA from Hofstra University in 2014 and his Ph.D. from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette in 2018. His poetry has appeared in Roanoke Review, Califragile, deLuge Journal, and Mockingheart Review among other publications. He currently lives in Weatherford, OK, where he teaches writing at Southwestern Oklahoma State University.