LESSON

for Ron Bitticks

We met in the studio, cold

and empty save for Carrie's paintings

large and encrusted with oils, a

bas relief of the ethereal,

luminescent strokes,

oyster and blue gray,

the shimmering mist of light

somehow refracted through the soul,

mesmerizing, the iridescent

elan vital that envelops us

like a halo.

We stood before her paintings,

six visions of essence, and

prepared for the crit. There was

a stillness, an awe, a shuddering,

the four of us afraid to talk,

pacing the warehouse floor, waiting

for a question, any question,

to relieve the silence. The

professor broke the trance and

led us to the imbecility of words,

disjointed syllables, clumsy

sentences in the presence of

so much mind. "Well, what is this?"

he asked, as if the words had

never been strung together

quite this way, as if this was

the very first question we'd

heard. There was more nervous

banter of hands, shifting feet,

"What are these trying to be?"

There were jabs of words,

fits and starts, sudden pile-ups

of uncertainty, retraced, vocables,

curiosities. "These are the feet,"

someone said, "suggesting a body

somehow floating in the luster--

it's as if the air itself, the very

atmosphere, is some silvery

substantiality, like you see

at the shore when the sun

blinds you in the mist, that haze."

"It's like some new era being

born," someone added, "yes,"

another chimed in, "the world

vanishing, dissipating

into spirit." The professor

strolled before the paintings,

embarrassed by his very presence,

tuggingh at his mustache.

the poised inquisitor, the stentor,

impatient with life. "I wonder,"

he asked, "if there are any questions

from the painter?" There were none

excerpt, at the anguished unfolding

of hands, her skinny fingers splotched

with coppery pigment and a

tainted agony, she asked

"What do you think?" We stuttered

and stammered, unequal to

so much tremulous light

surrounding us, our eyes lost

in the mysterious mystic.

"You've done it!" the professor

shouted, somewhere between a

laugh and a forced confession,

and we all parted ways, nodding,

knowing something more than

he could possible say.