By Richard Mather
Potato eaters –
five peasant women,
clothed in rags,
seated round
a square table
in a brown room.
The scene is set.
Outside the frame,
a famous artist
inspects the dim
and manifold
prospect…
Five chairs,
two forks,
an oil lamp,
a tablecloth,
people, a kettle,
wooden beams.
But nothing –
not a single
thing –
can be fully
described,
recorded, depicted.
Every angle
of vision –
each perception –
refuses to yield
the clock’s essence,
the kettle’s nature.
Perturbed
and defeated,
the artist withdraws.
And the plates,
chairs, women,
clock, oil lamp,
continue to
equally exist
on the flat surface.
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