Reclining in Central Park, I Remember

By Spencer Barnhill

when I would climb each MET museum stair

imagining all the art beyond that door and marbled

atrium, soon to explore resplendent halls with joy

and laissez faire.

I’d watch Hokusai’s Wave, canary yellow Monets,

Panini’s Ancient Rome, a war that paint, like blood,

elucidates far more than words alone, with beauty

deep, aglow.

But shallow art is quickly filling halls, for taste has

changed from meaningful to choose your own

value, and thus unclear, uncouth.

With air now thin and colors grim, dry walls desire

what once they wore: art that imbues not muddies

the soul, through beauty traced with truth.