Idlers in the Gallery

by Pamela Miller Ness and Michael Dylan Welch

Second prize winner in the 2004 Haiku Poets of Northern California rengay contest. First published in Mariposa #12, Spring–Summer 2005, page 24. Written by email from November 2003 to March 2004. Each verse is based on a painting in the National Academy of Design in New York City. See this ekphrastic rengay with the paintings displayed.

overflowing

its cut-glass vase

La Farge’s magnolia Pamela

Homer’s croquet player

hides a ball with her skirt Michael

strewn across

her studio table

Nell Blaine’s turnips Pamela

the unused pencils . . .

Jacob Lawrence grins

in his self-portrait Michael

gathering hollyhocks

Frieseke’s woman in blue Pamela

to the porch born . . .

the precise signature

on Blum’s two idlers Michael