Category — Art

It has to be loved the way a laundress loves her linens,  
 the way she moves her hands caressing the fine muslins  
 knowing their warp and woof,  
 like a lover coaxing, or a mother praising.  
 It has to be loved as if it were embroidered 
 with flowers and birds and two joined hearts upon it.  
 It has to be stretched and stroked.  
 It has to be celebrated.  
 O this great beloved world and all the creatures in it. 
 It has to be spread out, the skin of this planet.

The trees must be washed, and the grasses and mosses.  
 They have to be polished as if made of green brass.  
 The rivers and little streams with their hidden cresses  
 and pale-coloured pebbles  
 and their fool’s gold  
 must be washed and starched or shined into brightness,  
 the sheets of lake water  
 smoothed with the hand  
 and the foam of the oceans pressed into neatness.  
 It has to be ironed, the sea in its whiteness.

and pleated and goffered, the flower-blue sea  
 the protean, wine-dark, grey, green, sea  
 with its metres of satin and bolts of brocade.  
 And sky – such an 0! overhead – night and day  
 must be burnished and rubbed  
 by hands that are loving  
 so the blue blazons forth  
 and the stars keep on shining  
 within and above  
 and the hands keep on moving.

 It has to be made bright, the skin of this planet  
 till it shines in the sun like gold leaf.  
 Archangels then will attend to its metals  
 and polish the rods of its rain.  
 Seraphim will stop singing hosannas 
 to shower it with blessings and blisses and praises  
 and, newly in love,  
 we must draw it and paint it  
 our pencils and brushes and loving caresses  
 smoothing the holy surfaces.   – “The Planet” © 1994 P.K. Page

Celebrated poet P.K. Page died January 14th, 2010 at the age of 93 in Victoria, B.C.  She will be missed.