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5. Watercolor on a Book Jacket: Art about Art

Bell, Marvin

Buoyant to look upon this illustration.

The smeared red boat at shore's edge drawn across the lake,

placed there, perhaps, simply by dragging an inked thumb.

The far mountains layered in ruby and tan.

And the bunchy tree casting a moist shadow.

What would you give to be here? This is peace or

an illustration of peace. Distant peasant figures carry their dense

packages as they fade into the mist. The road home is long.

Here there is no life after the flood of news.

The day has been assassinated by those waiting to be born.

It is thus so, always so. We who are old cannot return to childhood,

unreal gathering of the flock before shearing.

So we must go back to these pictures of times before we came to be.

So that the world may be smeared with birthing,

always with the fresh pigment of life beneath the surface,

and where the imagination may see in an illustration

its future not yet lived. This being the cover of a book,

there is no back to the picture and no passage of time.