Planning to Vanish

Jacob Jordaens
Holy Family with St Elizabeth and an Angel
ca. 1617
oil on canvas
Liechtenstein Museum, Vienna

Jacob Jordaens
Adoration of the Shepherds
ca. 1615
oil on panel
Liechtenstein Museum, Vienna

Jacob Jordaens
Presentation in the Temple
ca. 1640
oil on canvas
Rubenshuis, Antwerp

Jacob Jordaens
The Stoning of Stephen
ca. 1620-30
watercolor on paper
Städel Museum, Frankfurt

Hans Holbein the Younger
Portrait of Nicholas Bourbon
ca. 1535
drawing
Royal Collection, Windsor

Hans Holbein the Younger
Portrait of Simon George
ca. 1535
drawing
Royal Collection, Windsor

Hans Holbein the Younger
Portrait of Sir Henry Guildford
1527
drawing
Royal Collection, Windsor

Hans Holbein the Younger
Portrait of Sir Thomas Lestrange
ca. 1536
drawing
Royal Collection, Windsor

Joseph J. Gould
Lippincott's - January
1896
lithograph (poster)
Kunstbibliothek, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Joseph J. Gould
Lippincott's - May
1897
lithograph (poster)
Kunstbibliothek, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Joseph J. Gould
Lippincott's - July
1896
lithograph (poster)
Kunstbibliothek, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Joseph J. Gould
Lippincott's - November
1896
lithograph (poster)
Kunstbibliothek, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Georgia O'Keeffe
Petunia and Glass Bottle
1924
oil on canvas
Denver Art Museum, Colorado

Georgia O'Keeffe
Pink Abstraction
1929
oil on canvas
Phoenix Art Museum, Arizona

Georgia O'Keeffe
Horse's Skull with Pink Rose
1931
oil on canvas
Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Georgia O'Keeffe
It was a Man and a Pot
1942
oil on canvas
Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, California

from Part Two of The Age of Anxiety

Emble said:
                                      My cousins were both
     Strong and stupid: they stole my candy,
     They tied me to a tree, they twisted my arms,
     Called me crybaby. "Take care," I sobbed,
     "I could hold up my hand and hot water
     Would come down on your drought and drown you all
     In your big boots." In our back garden
     One dark afternoon I dug quite a hole
     Planning to vanish.

Rosetta said:
                                     On picnic days
     My dearest doll was deaf and spoke in
     Grunts like grandfather: God understood
     If we washed our necks he wasn't ever
     To look in the loft where the Lamps were
     And the Holy Hook. In the housekeeper's room there
     Was currant cake and calves-foot jelly
     As we did our sums while down below
     Tall in tweeds on the terrace gravel,
     Father and his friends reformed régimes,
     Monies and monarchs, and mother wrote
     Swift and sure in the silk-hung saloon
     Her large round letters. Along the esker,
     Following a fox with our fingers crossed 
     Or after the ogre in Indian file,
     We stole with our sticks through a still world of
     Hilarious light, our lives united
     Like fruit in a bowl, befriended by
     The supple silence, incited by
     Our shortened shadows. 

– W.H. Auden (1944-46)