song of ducks

STUDY IN ORANGE AND WHITE

I knew that James Whistler was part of the Paris scene,
but I was still surprised when I found the painting
of his mother
at the Musée d'Orsay
among all the colored dots and mobile brushstrokes
of the French Impressionists.
•
And I was surprised to notice
after a few minutes of benign staring,
how that woman, stark in profile
and fixed forever in her chair,
began to resemble
my own ancient mother
who was now fixed forever in the stars, the air, the earth.
•
You can understand why he titled
the painting
"Arrangement in Gray and Black"
instead of what everyone naturally calls it,
but afterward, as I walked along the river bank,
I imagined how it might have broken
the woman's heart to be demoted from mother
to a mere composition, a study in colorlessness.
•
As the summer couples leaned
into each other
along the quay and the wide,
low-slung boats
full of spectators slid
up and down the Seine
between the carved stone bridges
and their watery reflections,
I thought: how ridiculous, how off-base.
•
It would be like Botticelli calling "The Birth of Venus"
"Composition in Blue, Ochre, Green, and Pink,"
or the other way around
like Rothko titling one of his sandwiches of color
"Fishing Boats Leaving Falmouth Harbor at Dawn."
•
Or, as I scanned the menu at the cafe
where I now had come to rest,
it would be like painting something laughable,
like a chef turning on a spit
over a blazing fire in front of
an audience of ducks
and calling it
"Study in Orange and White."
•
But by that time, a waiter had appeared
with my glass of Pernod and a clear
pitcher of water,
and I sat there thinking of nothing
but the women and men passing by—
mothers and sons walking their small fragile dogs—
and about myself,
a kind of composition in blue and khaki,
and, now that I had poured
some water into the glass, milky-green.

Billy Collins

Poetry (January 1999)