Rain by Nnamdi Ndiolo
Gogh’s easel, too, was an ark; each brushstroke, another rescued beast
Rain
after Van Gogh’s Rain Neither lucernes nor sunflowers in Gogh’s Rain, only petrichor’s call unsheathing the leaves— wheat fields bent in full genuflection, forging a new religion from the empyrean. She hails from the floodgates, feather-light, falling with the feral grace of a harbinger. Have you seen anything greater than this— a force fluent in the heft of her power? See how the sky yawns in adulation, thunder throbbing in heaven’s throat, & crows cowering at the rain’s refrain, racing toward Earth like bullets to bodies, pattering like pigment on a painter’s palette. Gogh’s easel, too, was an ark; each brushstroke, another rescued beast, each brushstroke— another oleander mistaken for an olive. & in the beginning was God grieving His creation: sons of Adam raising alabaster altars to themselves— bronze gods garmented with God’s stolen glory, until His wrath unlatched the world’s first deluge. & there was rain, & there was ruin— a tumult of human hands knuckling Noah’s ark, & Noah asking God: Will your mercy marinate these hands hemorrhaging beyond my ark? & the earth drank deep like Gogh’s fields drunk on heaven’s white wine— grasses gurgling gospel, paintbrushes bleeding blue belief. Neither sunflowers nor lucernes in Gogh’s Rain, but heaven unbuttoning her silver seeds again— wheat fields fenestrated by the first flood, the sodden gospel of a world reborn drowned.
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One of the best ekphrastic poems I've read in a while. I love how it adds a story not told in the painting, and how it delves into biblical myths. I can't tell if the speaker is a 'religious' person or not, and I like that. The story is woven into the visual art--and really the poem stands alone even without looking at it, as ekphrasis should. And it offers a perfect reflection of the work some of us have done in engaging with Leonard Cohen.
A beautiful painting within itself, this poem is one I will read many times, absorbing the depths of each line.