But his real subject is light,
I realize, as I turn the pages
of this old book of Clarence White’s photographs
I’ve come across by chance, here, looking around
this large rambling house, packed with art and books,
on a rainy summer afternoon in Connecticut
where I’m staying with friends for the weekend.
Grainy, pale black and white images
that evoke a whole, lost, distant world—of light.
For instance, here in this still life:
the objects simply disappear.
Light and shadows curve into a torso,
then swirl into other sculptural forms
and momentarily settle
into a backdrop whorl of light,
before diffusing into something else.
Or, in this one:
slightly blurred, off-focus, light-struck—
the streaks of white flowers blown
across a summer field could be snow.
And as I keep turning the pages, I see images
that are now not even memories.
Of ...

This article is available to subscribers and for individual purchase