His smile opens over a missing
front tooth. Perhaps he’s eight,
maybe nine. A gray wool cap
hangs on his forehead, jacket
buttoned, black. He perches on
the end of a planked bench and
waits as instructed. He holds
his hand on a plaid red blanket
draped across the bench -- is it
his mother’s fringed shawl -- maybe,
it is worn, it is dear. He looks straight
at Chagall as if posing one century
ago in Paris, or was it Vitebsk?
Morning sunrays warm the walls, the
floor of a room that seems cozy,
except the doors that are padlocked
and the barren space -- lock, bench,
cupboard, a dustpan, rose-colored jug
stored high, out of his reach.
Scarce color in this painting, the boy’s
feet are on the floor. No magic cows or
smiling horse, no lovers float above.
This was what the artist painted, nothing
more about the boy. Imagine him painted
now -- would the lock be gone, the title new?
or would nothing change -- the boy sitting
idle, waiting as told, faint hues of
red and rose -- still the village idiot.
© Marti Snell, 2015
Painting: “The Village Idiot” by Marc Chagall (1914-15)
Painted in Paris but likely an image from his home near Vitebsk, Belarus - part of the Russian Empire. Oil and graphite on paper (49.5 x 37.8 cm). In the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
1 comment:
Something very sad in this poem and in the painting. I would have never thought it was painted by Chagall----no joy or lightness to be found. I like how the poem unfolds.
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