Saturday 1 August 2020

Haimanti Dutta Ray, Poetry 2020 Longlist

Art’s Truth


What work of art is that you gaze at?

With diligence and care, had the model sat –

Yet when her job’s done, she left.

Leaving behind a painting, part cleft,

Partly finished, but for the horsehair touch

Of the brush which had brought out the blush

Of the maiden, sitting coyly and daintily

Averting the viewer’s gaze, hungrily

Devouring her -  one whose job’s to pose,

So as to help the young artist compose,

A painting that was a work of love,

A work that had peace just like the dove,

Acting as its central theme and message –

A deed that’s been handed down the ages.

 

Look at this young artist, who hadn’t had a morsel,

Of food since yesterday, yet gaping at things of tinsel!

Who’ll teach him that true art is as much

Of the mind as the heart, as such?

Yet he toils day and night over his canvases,

Which he knows, would travel a thousand seas,

On a day when he may be no more,

For he had gone to live a life, encore.

 

Art gives immortality to man,

Makes him transcend time as no one can,

Yet when we blaspheme an artwork,

Do we realize the value it hides under its cork?

Just like a bottle of champagne,

Whose brimming bubbles causes no one to complain,

But joy of intoxicants is effervescent,

As art is both timeless and cups within it a truth nascent.

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