Melding Madrigal, 2018, oil on gessoed paper, 11 x 8.5 in.
MELDING MADRIGAL
from & for Ashley Garrett
The painting is as clear
as the morning daylight
it reveals the creation of,
the world of forms pouring
out of clouds,
birth of a world.
But what does the painter mean
by the words she knows the painting by?
Melding seems to be the first word
and madrigal is certainly the second.
Meld seems to be a term from poker
where all your cards in get displayed,
your power manifest,
showing your hand—
from German melden,
‘to announce, proclaim’.
But in our American ears
it sounds like melting,
reminds us of colored wax
dripping slow down the candlestick,
crayons, mixing colors,
blending.
We think it means blending.
I hear the German word, though,
and know it means
the Hidden Deity
is proclaiming the actual,
this visible world.
Madrigal is harder—
is it the strict
polyphony of creation?
All our loves and sciences
to chart, chant, cherish
the trillion voices of its structure,
and maybe colors are
the melody we hear best?
Madrigal I forms madre,
the matrix, the mother,
cosmos of all living,
the womb-song,
wild hymn of what we are.
She makes us hear it in the swirl of now.
-Robert Kelly
10 December 2018