shot glass
title
"... brevity is the soul of wit ..."
- William Shakespeare

James B. Nicola


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Stills

Ingres' odalisque is still lying down.
Claude's cows are standing still.
The churchyard of the medieval town
will never extend up the side of the hill.

Even the haystacks, full of hay
and variegated with fleeting light,
will always be the way Monet
painted the haystacks. Which is all right,

there. Here, John Brown is to be hanged;
Washington's on a raft, his troops on fire;
a band of boys is caught as the bell is clanged;
and mountains gather like a Sunday choir.

The other rooms' are perfect. These,
unfinished, like America and me,
are mired in the uncertainties
of what's possible, or about to be.

Metropolitan Museum, American Wing