Williamson & Shaffer – November 2024

Eric Paul Shaffer and Ernest Williamson III traded art and words. Ernest shared this painting, titled “Outside of Ourselves,” with Eric:

In response, Eric wrote this poem:

Exfinition

Always outside of ourselves, the world looks just so
when we travel far enough. Inked and painted lines
                         are ours, drawn from us, not the sky,
not the earth, not even the whorls at the tip of a finger.

Look softly, and the world blurs. Edges vanish. I slacken
                         my sight and exfine the world, erase brinks,
mute borders, and then I see. In a fade of red, I see a world
in flux. In a mist of green, I see what I should never expect.

                         In a splash of white, I see an eternity
no one wants. I see all the same way snow smooths
the verge of a cliff and deroughs the peaks of mountains.
                         The way fog dims wet windows and dulls

every particular of trees and telephone poles, banks
and cathedrals. The way clouds mere miles above the sea
                         obscure billions of years of light or the quick
flicker of meteors enticed to ground, yet let fall the rain,

each drop englobed by the same force in a foolish rush
                         to earth. The way a sky so delicate
and blue overhead suddenly blackens as we thrust ourselves
to icy heights beyond the blunt thinitude of what sustains

                         our breath. The way the wind slides rocks
over slick, wet desert sand in curving trails, explicable
and unstuck. The way red becomes a younger red
                         we call pink and in another light is gray.

The way future planets infusing rocky shards and elements
resolutely decline the perfect circles we first sketched
                         in cosmic shells. The way the impermanent
stars drift from the monsters and heroes traced with sticks

on ancient darkness. The way the land in aerial photographs
                         melds in a winding of rivers and arching
of mountains. The way the boundless gyres in the energetic
rainbow shimmer of oil on water. The way sleep submerges

                         whatever I think I am in what I think I am
not, and I see no more of myself before I rise once more
from those blank waters. The way bubble gum and grass
                         harden in a sidewalk wad, then soften

in summer sun. The way medieval artists severed peasants
and knights, hovels and haystacks, horses, pigs, and goats
            at the canvas edge to reveal the world goes on.

* * * * *

Eric shared this poem with Ernest:

Admonishment in Blue

Why is the sky blue? The sky is not blue, you stupid child. The sky is
            gray or black flecked with specks that look silver. Sometimes,
the sky is queasy green, as before the hurricane that crushed the garage

and dragged the car into the sea. If you’re lucky, the sky is peach or pink
            or purple or pomegranate or any glorious word that starts with p,
and there is a hell of a collection of them. I’ve seen the sky golden,

actual twenty-four-karat atmosphere gleaming in the last of an otherwise
                         unremarkable and inconsequential day. Sit still, damn you.
From a mountaintop, the sky is an indigo polished by winds that banish

the clouds and punish the fools who loiter on a peak, where no one wise
            ever lingers. The sky may be a blazing shade of white denying
distinctions between earth and heaven, land and sea, up and down, lost

            and found. Listen now. On a morning sea, the sky bleeds scarlet
while ships run for a harbor to hide from the mounting gale. But blue?
The sky is never blue. There may be an occasion for turquoise or azure

or–what’s that word the poets and other know-it-alls use? Cerulean?
            Wipe your face, and let me be. I’ll tell you when to look up.

In response, Ernest made this image, titled “Remind Me After the Rain”: