Monday, July 24
ABSTRACTION miscarriage 9/24/2021 A cheap print of an aspen grove In the exam room — it’s not bad, Cross-lines of bark, long straight lines for the trunks, Brown and black and gold in the foreground, Receding to white in the back — the farthest trees, then, Just a line or two, a white line suggesting The whole tree. If I were teaching, say, a child, say You, I could tell you that it’s called Abstraction, the line suggests the tree but isn’t, See the shapes the lines make in your head and it’s a tree But also isn’t, faint and fainter. But if You and I were in a forest, if we were in a birch forest in the snow, Then it’d be a tree and still a tree, a real tree, even if it was so far away we couldn’t see it, So far so white against the terrible white cold, a tree, a real tree Just so small and white against the snow it disappeared. (Lindsay Turner)