Thank you to Lynda for bringing this one to my attention!
“A Brueghel Nativity.”
by William Carlos Williams
Peter Brueghel, the elder, painted
a Nativity, painted a Baby
new born!
among the words.
Armed men.
savagely armed men
armed with
pikes,
halberds and swords
whispering men with averted faces,
get to the heart
of the matter
as they talked to the pot bellied
greybeard (center)
the butt of their comments,
looking askance, showing their
amazement at the scene,
features like the more stupid
German soldiers of the late
War
—but the Baby (as from an
illustrated catalogue
in colors) lies naked on his Mother's
knees
—it is a scene, authentic
enough, to be witnessed frequently
among the poor (I salute
the man Brueghel who painted
what he saw—
many times no doubt
among his own kids but not of course
in this setting)
The crowned and mitred heads
of the three men, one of them black,
who had come, obviously from afar
(highwaymen?)
by the rich robes
they had on—offered
to propitiate their gods
Their hands were loaded with gifts
—they had eyes for visions
in those days—and saw,
saw with their proper eyes,
these things
to the envy of the vulgar soldiery
He painted
the bustle of the scene,
the unkempt straggling
hair of the old man in the
middle, his sagging lips
— —incredulous
that there was so much fuss
about such a simple thing as a baby
born to an old man
out of a girl and a pretty girl
at that
But the gifts! (works of art,
where could they have picked
them up or more properly
have stolen them?)
—how else to honor
an old man or a woman?
—the soldiers' ragged clothes,
mouths open,
their knees and feet
broken from thirty years of
war, hard campaigns, their mouths
watering for the feast which
had been provided
Peter Brueghel the artist saw it
from the two sides: the
imagination must be served—
and he served
dispassionately.
