[audio:http://shenandoahliterary.org/612/files/2011/08/If-You-are-Chagall.mp3|titles=If You are Chagall]
Vitebsk, Belarus
If you are Chagall
then you believe that
fish can thresh wheat.
If you are Rodin,
the gods are your
playthings and their
hands are perfect.
The total work of art
is achieved through the
soul’s inner necessity,
the way music persuades
without argument.
In this world the horses
want to stand on their
back feet and walk
like a man, towering
over the human who
has infuriated them.
All the chimneys become
holy relics and the hills
raise their skirts and
cancan, with the trees
for legs and blue feet
built from pools of water,
kicking their heels as high
as the light will allow.
From the shore the boats
are dwarfed, meager vessels
whose eager travel is
blown to molecules, notes
of the sky that prompt
the boiling ocean to pound
all attempts to tame it.
Gravity has long been
banished from this kingdom,
where the moon is the
only law and the horses
walk upright into the waves.
Their riders trail like birds
in the barking wake.
Every horse is secretly,
romantically, involved with
the sea and when they
sleep they dream of
whales flying unimpeded
through the deep music.
(Fish pity the cities).