Shelved?

Not all the art I live with hangs on walls.

Much more is in books. Where it rests, 

waits, perhaps even lurks, until the time

I open it. Then it opens me. Some volumes

are thick, heavy, outsize … supersize.

O’Keeffe, Klimt, Warhol’s photography.

The heavy lifters.  Others are long and slim,

like my copy of The Tale of Genji. This is

the Yoshitaka Amano set of paintings.

The tales are told briefly, but each image –

delicate in line, sumptuous in colour –

is matched by words of poetry, of longing.

My son, who knows what I treasure, gave me 

this book (having held it dear on his own 

closest shelves) after he saw my haiku 

to mourn a lover of Genji: the Moonflower girl.

The book lies quiet, inert, secret. Secretive. 

Until, in time, there creeps once again 

a thread of moonlight to touch me: a soft hand,

a gentle whisper… Ah yes. Yes. Ahhh!

For my haiku to mourn a lover of Genji, see here.

NaPoWriMo resource and prompt: Today’s daily resource is the online exhibitions page of the International Folk Art Museum. I have a particular predilection for folk art, in which the strange and boisterous so often finds itself going hand-in-hand with practical objects of daily use. But the museum also showcases work of other sorts, like 100 Aspects of the Moon, a series of woodblock prints completed by the Japanese artist Taiso Yoshitoshi shortly before his death in 1892.    [One of these was of the character I've called the Moonflower girl, from The Tale of Genji. – RNW]

Last but not least, here’s today’s (optional) prompt. In her poem, “Living with a Painting,” Denise Levertov describes just that. And well, that’s a pretty universal experience, isn’t it? It’s the rare human structure – be it a bedroom, kitchen, dentist’s office, or classroom – that doesn’t have art on its walls, even if it’s only the photos on a calendar. Today, we’d like to challenge you to write your own poem about living with a piece of art.