Auden instructed me
long ago how to view
Bruegel’s Icarus and
note the white legs
between shore and ship:
such a small and pitiful
percentage of pigment
on the scape. Now
I’ve looked again,
rediscovered wonders
in the view: the sun’s
genial, obese collision
with horizon; fat,
billowed sails; a
diamond-shaped
apparition above
one ship; the supple
curves of furrows
at the farmer’s feet;
the sacred, mellow
light into which
the plow-horse stares.
And the only red
of the painting flares
in the farmer’s blouse:
how anomalous
and right. About red,
Brueghel was not
profligate but wise.
Copyright 2009 Hans Ostrom
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