A Night at the Huntington Museum of Art

1 Glass Sculpture in Tropic of Koi

Yellow, green, and blue spirals –
Blown glass pond-tree
Mirrored in the water over
Lazily swimming Koi.

Seat facing pond, with
Air moist and warm – tropical,
Foggy moisture on the windows,
On a cold night in April.

2 Death by Design

Forged barrel, machined and polished, with
Firing mechanism patiently assembled from cast and smith-forged
Screws, springs, clamp-jaws to hold flint, ram-rod, and trigger,
Mounted on hand-carved, oiled and buffed mahogany,
With brass trim, waiting only powder and a musket ball,
And an eye to target victims and prey.
Hand-crafted, forged, machined death by design.

3 Form of the Vase

Elegant curves, from the lip of its opening
down its short neck to its Ming Dynasty,
reminiscent body, full below the neck
and tapered down to its base, an eternity below,
with images of flora and water flowing over
its surface and down to the floor, in hues of
blue and green in dappled patterns,
reminiscent of a tropical forest.

–LE – circa 4/2015

PS: We used to meet with a few friends who wrote poetry on Tuesday evenings to challenge and prompt each other’s creativity. So, this set of poems came from a little Tuesday evening excursion we all took to the Huntington Museum of Art for some hoped-for inspiration. The HMA is situated about a half-hour from our house at the time. We were living in Ashland KY then, right next to the WV border, near Huntington. These poems represent only three small instances of the museum’s many treasures.