​The Viewer Proves My Point, by Barbara Lydecker Crane

The Garden of Earthly Delights, by Hieronymous Bosch (Netherlands) c. 1490-1500

​The Viewer Proves My Point
       
Is this the oddest art you’ve ever viewed?
At left, fantastic mountains- brightly blued-            
grassy hills, and a kingdom of beasts exude
strange peace. Here woods await to seclude
the act this Eden two later rued.
God brings them together in rectitude,
which would turn to horror at the mood
across the central panel. All are nude;
dozens of depraved souls are strewed
about. I do not paint their couplings, lewd
though my mind may be; I only allude
to sin’s enticement. In Hell at right, you’ll brood
where midnight fires burn at altitude;
below, watch fiends and demons as they collude
in torture, a fate for all infinitude. 
You cringe and look away, back to rude
pursuits. It’s there your widened eyes are glued
and prove my point: everyone is crude,
in part. I’ll leave you in disquietude.

Barbara Lydecker Crane

Barbara Lydecker Crane won the Sonnet Crown prize in the 2024 Kim Bridgford Memorial Sonnet Contest, Honorable Mention in the 2024 Frost Farm Poetry Contest, and was a finalist for the Rattle Poetry Prize in 2017 and 2019. Able Muse published her fourth collection, You Will Remember Me- illustrated, ekphrastic sonnets in the voices of portrait painters throughout history.  She enjoys making and looking at art, travel, and her family, which includes four fast-growing grandchildren and one near-perfect husband: he does not read poetry.