Two Poems by Dane Karnick

El Pintor

After the watercolor by Amado Peña, 1983

The painter is secluded

Yet accompanied

By los fantasmas

Phantoms who inhabit

Pueblo sun-dried bricks

From a thousand years

Assist the artist with 

Canvass mutterings

To guide brush hairs through

Turquoise and ochre

Lucid as sky above land

In contemplación

Between living and dead

This plain shared together

In adobe corridors

By Red Willow People

Still painting in flesh

Around bones of yesterday

Their sombreros above time

Unhurried as specters 

Woman With Oranges

After the painting by RC Gorman, 1983

A Navojo woman is

Confounded by fruit

That leaves when she exits

And appears when she arrives

Usually half-dozen

At home or anywhere else

Their shadows in ripe sun

Ready to be eaten 

But gone upon puncture

Their petite goodbye

On the heals of another

Manifestation

For her quizzical look

At silent companions

Consuming her time

As if expecting her

To make spherical sense

Of friendly still life

Dane Karnick grew up by the Colorado “Rockies” and lives near Seattle.  His poetry recently appeared in Treehouse Arts, Scarlet Leaf, riverrun and Gravel.  Visit him at www.danekarnick.com.