The Beauty of the Fork
Rebecca Pyle
Things are ritualized
As in fairy
Tales, as in sharp
Miracles, as in truth.
I can prove
I have cared most
Though I have cared
Poorly; I can stack the saddle blankets that
Became too small. I can close the dark door
And also I can bring in the light. I can study
The beauty of the fork, the spoon, and the
Intermediary knife, poised, all sorrow, to the
Heart side of our plates. When weary I can study
The glittering little glass of water and the dark little
Glass of wine, and wish they did not exist in endless
Duplicate, tonight, Il Violino. I wish a silversmith had
Made them for this evening, one by one, without
Template. I wish our love was new.
I think all this, on the water.
How I love the color of the wine, in the glasses,
The moving things beyond the windows of Il Violino, the
Music I remember hearing yet never want to remember again,
The torture of your hours, practice.
Practice for what?
The rare and painful
Moment of performance, the rain that could
Become a flood, and carry us happy
And hapless, away, your violin floating back
To its forest place of birth, wild horses
Very distant, the shape of them
As beautiful and fretful
As hills.
Rebecca Pyle is a painter and a writer. She paints to be away from words; she writes to express the emotion—of what she sees.
Rebecca, who has lived in many places, now lives in Utah between two etherealnesses: the Great Salt Lake to the west, with its small islands and huge migrating bird populations, and an old mountain mining town high up and to the east: Park City, where the Sundance film festival takes place each winter.
The old mountain town and the strange lake, she thinks, are fine for a writer or a painter to live between: both the strange lake and the old film-festival mountain town are perennial protection, harbor—for dreamers, rememberers, travelers—creatures who like to fly very far above things, travel, yet always remember.
Rebecca Pyle's artwork, poetry, and stories—even a comic-graphic—have been published in many journals and reviews: Wisconsin Review, Hawai’i Review, Indian Review, The Bangalore Review, New England Review, Raven Chronicles Journal, Requited Journal, The Remembered Arts Journal, and elsewhere. Rebecca Pyle is an oil painter.
For more about her poetry and art, read her interview with Sarah Raines.
