The Paddock Review

Adoration of Remedios Varo

Surrealist painter

b. 1908 Catalonia – d. 1963 Mexico City

 

 

Varo, goddess, I wish I had known you in Spain

and your cat also, Mimesis, looking

up from inside the floorboards for blessing,

and the woman evolving from a chair

then flowing into Aurora-of-the-Lanes,

hair and gown fluttering with radiance,

her soul full of birds born of starlight.

Yes, I wish I had known you all.

 

I wish I had known you in Pairs

after you fled Barcelona

and the useless alchemist in his tower

with razor eyes, weaving

the black and white checkered floor

of his monk’s cell, homage to Franco.

 

And later, after you had fled Hitler,

I wish I known you in Mexico City,

net in hand for catching stars,

with the nightingale moon

already caught and nesting

In its little cage. 

 

I would have wandered D.F.’s lápiz

streets with you, your votary,

till we found the vagabond flute player

and his flaming feline familiar tucked

into his unicycle cape. I would have eaten

at your table where a galaxy of plates spun

a halo around a candle illuminating shadows;

I would have sailed upon your conversation

in a boat of white heron.

 

Varo, I ache for your baptism

and the journeys you took

inside your motorized waistcoat

rhrough the misty wood

to Orinoco

seaching for solar music.

……

This poem is from the chapbook Solar Music by Elaine Alarcon (Finishing Line Press), and can be found at https://www.finishinglinepress.com/product/solar-music-by-elaine-alarcon/