LINDA PASTAN AND JORIE GRAHAM ON MASACCIO’S “EXPULSION”

FRESCO

In Masaccio’s Expulsion

from the Garden,

how benign the angel seems,

like a good civil servant

he is merely enforcing

the rules. I remember

these faces from Fine Arts 13.

I was young enough then

to think that the loss of innocence

was just about Sex.

Now I see Eve covering

her breasts with her hands

and I know it is not to hide them

but only to keep them

from all she must know

is to follow from Abel

on one, Cain on the other.

            ~ Linda Pastan

**

Here is another poem inspired by the same fresco. We need to see more of the chapel to understand Graham’s reference to the world outside Eden. This image includes some of the surrounding frescoes in the Brancacci Chapel in the Church of Santa Maria del Carmine in Florence. Masaccio's work dates back to 1425. 

MASACCIO’S EXPULSION

Is this really the failure

  of silence,

or eternity, where these two 
        suffer entrance 
into the picture  
        plane,

a man and a woman 
        so hollowed 
by grief they cover 
        their eyes 
in order not to see 
        the inexhaustible grammar


before them – labor, judgment, 
        saints and peddlers – 
the daylight hopelessly even 
        upon them 
and our eyes. But this too 
        is a garden


I'd say, with its architecture 
        of grief, 
its dark and light 
        in the folds 
of clothing, and oranges, 
       for sale


among the shadows  
        of oranges.  All round them, 
        on the way down 
        toward us, 
woods thicken.  And perhaps 
        it is a flaw


on the wall of this church, or age,  
        or merely the restlessness 
of the brilliant 
        young painter 
the large blue bird 
        seen flying too low


just where the trees  
        clot. I 
want to say to them 
        who have crossed 
into this terrifying  
        usefulness – symbols,


balancing shapes in 
        a composition, 
mother and father, 
        hired hands – 
I want to say to them, 
        Take your faces


out of your hands 
        look at that bird, 
the gift of 
        the paint – 
I've seen it often 
        here


in my life, 
         a Sharp-Shinned Hawk, 
tearing into the woods 
        for which it's  
too big, abandoning 
                 the open


prairie in which 
                   it is free and easily 
eloquent. Watch 
        where it will not  
veer but follows 
        the stain


of woods, 
        a long blue arc 
breaking itself 
        through the wet 
black ribs 
        of those trees,


seeking a narrower 
        place.  Always 
I find the feathers 
        afterward. . . . 
Perhaps you know 
        why it turns in


this way 
        and will not stop? 
In the foreground 
        almost life-size 
the saints hawk their wares, 
        and the women


and merchants.  They too 
        are traveling 
a space too small 
        to fit in, 
calling out names 
        or prices


or proof of faith. 
        Whatever they are, 
it beats 
        up through the woods 
of their bodies, 
        almost a light, up


through their fingertips, 
        their eyes. 
There isn't a price 
        (that floats up 
through their miraculous  
        bodies


and lingers above them 
        in the gold air) 
that won't live forever. 
   
      ~ Jorie Graham


**

Some readers will prefer Pastan’s more accessible poem; others will be dazzled by Jorie Graham’s unexpected, electrifying language (especially in the first half of the poem). I know that it’s Graham’s poem I will be returning to again and again, though I greatly appreciate Pastan’s wisdom. I will be returning to Graham’s dramatic tension and mystery.


I especially love the second stanza:


a man and a woman
    so hollowed 
by grief they cover
    their eyes
in order not to see
    the inexhaustible grammar


before them -- labor, judgment, 


*

Graham's poem could end:


I want to say to them,
    Take your faces


out of your hands,
   look at the bird,
the gift of 
      the paint --


but the poem flows on as though by itself, and that too is a mystery that compels me to read it to the end, and ponder the price we keep on paying for any significant choice. 

As for the fresco, I find it mesmerizing. I identify with Eve. It wasn’t that I was exiled. I exiled myself because I too wanted to know (“to see the world”) and to be as the gods (those who lived in the West). Like Eve, I yearned for a “larger life.”

Until I gained a broader perspective, reality seemed a travesty of that yearning. The sense of loss was overwhelming. Yet I had to admit that California was certainly “also a garden,” as Jorie Graham puts it, in an almost desperate attempt to put a positive slant on the Expulsion.  

Graham protests too much, and this spoils the second part of the poem. The bird entering a space too small for him is an unconvincing role model. But I agree that those exiles and immigrants who remain pathologically blind to the world around them (though I understand the dissonance that comes with having a different world inside you) deprive themselves of a chance for happiness. It’s a more complex happiness than the easier, warmer, more natural happiness of those who remain settled in their homeland and their culture, but one can work through to contentment (I speak as one who once thought that could never happen, at least not in my case; that a “happy immigrant” was like a “gay corpse”).

The emptiness of suburbia and the stress of huge commutes are still a part of my life, but I realize that living in another place would bring other problems. That’s how reality tends to be everywhere: nothing is all good or all bad. My real homeland is the country of the mind. 

**

Hyacinth:

There is much to be said about both poems. Pastan's style is more in keeping with the way I write, very much in the vernacular , simple direct and clear and startling at the conclusion. Graham's is much more complex and makes demands on the reader, delves more deeply into all aspects of the painting. Her  poem doesn't just present what we know of the painting but makes us want to know more and even more. Will take many readings. I esp like the woods images but see no woods in the painting or bird??? or oranges- is she just imagining some of this? I'm confused but delighted anyway.


Oriana:

Jorie grew up and traveled in Italy and no doubt got to see the entire fresco-covered chapel -- and somewhere there must be a bird, and oranges for sale. I agree that this poem invites many re-readings. Pastan addresses one feature of the fresco in particular: Eve is covering her breasts.   This small and banal-seeming detail blossoms into an unexpected commentary on the rest of the human history that's yet to unfold, indicated simply by the names of Cain and Abel. 

Seretta:

As always, I enjoyed the art, poems and comments. I found Linda's poem easy to access and Jori's will require several readings and more contemplation. I agree with the point where you thought the poem could end and I felt that it went on longer than it needed to. I am impressed with the fact that the sword is the one spot of black in the fresco and it stands out with vengeance. The expression of the angel doesn't look angry but the sword is piercing and war-like. The way the figures are covering themselves seems to be something more than either poem has addressed. It may be fear or shame or grief. Could it be a primal self-consciousness as they are naked and exposed to an angel who has suddenly appeared? I don't think that either poem has captured the emotion of the scene. Perhaps I am being too critical.

Oriana:

I particularly agree with the statement: "I don't think that either poem has captured the emotion of the scene." The fresco is simply startling in its emotional expressiveness. I think Pastan comes closer to entering Eve's mind, but neither poem does full justice to the extraordinary painting. I admit the task would be very difficult. 

It's interesting that the couple are presented naked. Going by Genesis, they should at this point be clothed in animal skin outfits created for them by God as the first fashion designer. But nakedness connotes vulnerability and feeling "exposed," as you observe. I also love your having pointed out the dramatic blackness of the sword.


I wonder if perhaps there is simply too much in this poem, and yet not enough. Do we really care enough about the sharp-shinned hawk? It's the drama of the couple that I want to stay with. I like the turn the poem makes with "take your faces out of your hands, look . . . " -- but what follows is not enticing enough.