Remedios Varo: The Call

By Michael Kiesow Moore

dedicated to Deborah Keenan

A woman, aglow with bold hues of
fiery amber, crimson, and saffron,
walks through a city that sleeps

in brown. Her eyes are open, the
eyes of those she passes, closed.
There is one — she — who is awake,

who sees, not the drab buildings
or sleeping souls, but wonder.
Her body and garments blaze,

haloes of stardust tracing where stockinged
feet tread. What was the call she heard?
To become an artist? To serve the poor?

To pray? Maybe Remedios Varo, the artist,
tells us about the call she answered,
how each painting has been a prayer,

journeys into mystery realms
where spirit and flesh fuse when
pigment touches wood.

Still, I think the painting is about
the sleepers, not the awakened one.
Our attention, yes, lands on that

walking wonder, all that glory moving
at us. But gaze to the sleeping ones, the
frozen bodies melting into the walls.

They are being called, too, asked to
open eyes and wake up. How many
times have we been called but choose

instead sleep? We have always the
choice to make answer, exhale yes.
What did she assent to that makes

her so emanate? Whatever it was,
her glowing hair ascends to heaven
and orbits a star.

Published 2005,Water~Stone, 6 (1).