August 2016
Ed Ruzicka
edzekezone@gmail.com
edzekezone@gmail.com
At 16 I was a Cubs fan from a Cubs family when I got drug to a “Dada & Surrealism” show at the Art Institute of Chicago. Now my brother says, “ I live here and you go to the Institute way more than me.” My book, “Engines of Belief” is an ekphrastic jubilee dedicated to Modern Art. edrpoet.com
The Color Of Labor
based on Marc Chagall's Madonna of the Village
This shtetl’s dreary lanes
spill out over a hillside
under the feet of a bride
dressed in purest white and already
cradling her infant in her arms.
The fiddler’s notes shape clouds,
and begin to turn the small feet of the bride.
In closets, husbands hunt for cloths
to make their shoes shine. Wives
throw on their slips and gay dresses.
As the fiddler fiddles a tune
they have all known since childhood,
couples slide out onto roads, twirl
their chosen ones in their arms.
The groom himself, weightless as smoke,
arches above his bride and child.
Though we can not tell which doorway
he has come from, which dark window
this new father will stand in,
we see how the groom’s clothing
remains the brown of the village
a crowd of buildings where labor lasts
long after the wedding and feast.
spill out over a hillside
under the feet of a bride
dressed in purest white and already
cradling her infant in her arms.
The fiddler’s notes shape clouds,
and begin to turn the small feet of the bride.
In closets, husbands hunt for cloths
to make their shoes shine. Wives
throw on their slips and gay dresses.
As the fiddler fiddles a tune
they have all known since childhood,
couples slide out onto roads, twirl
their chosen ones in their arms.
The groom himself, weightless as smoke,
arches above his bride and child.
Though we can not tell which doorway
he has come from, which dark window
this new father will stand in,
we see how the groom’s clothing
remains the brown of the village
a crowd of buildings where labor lasts
long after the wedding and feast.
©2016 Ed Ruzicka
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