Bradley Earle Hoge
Fog of Liquid Ink on Stone
James McNeil Whistler, “Nocturne: The Thames at Battersea”
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Nocturne—nearly night.
Lonely fisherman seining river depths.
City hazy in the background.
Water negative space—lithotint—
impression of liquid ink on stone.
Blurry, as a child’s rubbing
of charcoal over leaves.
What was Whistler’s intent
through choice of medium and gray palette?
Foreground serene
against backdrop of industrial revolution.
At a time when moths turned black
against sooty bark
and Malthusian angst roiled
intelligentsia. While the masses labored on.
Change threatening the future
but not of immediate concern.
The first of the perilous cycles
of environmental degradation
preceding cultural revolution.
Warnings lost behind vainglorious
curtain of smoke and fog.
Legacy
She will see the irises
bloom in February
and her father will say
“when I was a boy
the land stretched
all the way past
the sunken city
and irises never bloomed
in the front yard.”
And she will see alligators
along the bayou banks
and her mother will say
“don’t go near abandoned
buildings, and don’t talk
to strangers in their rowboats
fishing the bayou for gar.”
And she will laugh
and play with the dog,
and follow her mother’s rules,
and listen to her father’s stories.
Just like any childhood.
Because she
will not know
any better.
