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| Odilon Redon Butterflies ca. 1910 oil on canvas Museum of Modern Art, New York |
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| Odilon Redon Caliban 1881 drawing Musée d'Orsay, Paris |
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| Odilon Redon Pandora before 1916 pastel Museum of Fine Arts, Houston |
THE MATTER
In it were the things a man kept, otherwise they were not in the box: a toy person with an arm missing; also a leg.
Actually, both arms were missing. And, as one leg was missing, so was the other; even the torso and the head.
But, no matter, because in it was another toy person. This one was also missing an arm and one of its legs.
Actually, it had no arms at all; same with the legs, the torso and head.
But, no matter, the box was full of armless and legless toys without torsos or heads.
But again, no matter, because even the box was missing . . . And then even the man . . .
In the end there was only an arrangement of words; and still, no matter . . .
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| Odilon Redon Buddha 1904 oil on canvas Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam |
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| Odilon Redon Tears 1878 drawing Museum of Fine Arts, Boston |
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| Odilon Redon The Trees 1890s drawing Museum of Fine Arts, Houston |
OF THIS WORLD
The old man definitely has wings. You see them when the light is right. They are attached to his faded overcoat, which once blue is turning brown.
The wings are so delicate, so transparent, they don't seem the kind of wings an old man would have. One would expect thick, woody feathers.
Yet, still he wants his hot soup, and wants to sit near the fire and rub the hands, grown thick and stiff, of this life together, to feel the blood of this life in them.
When he takes off his overcoat to sit by the fire I look to see if the wings are still attached to it. And of course they're not. Now the wings are attached to the old sweater he wears. When the fire blazes up the wings are suddenly there. They droop from his sweater and hang down from his chair, the ends lightly crumpled on the floor.
He rubs his hands together gazing into the fire. How he enjoys the fire of this world . . .
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| Odilon Redon Flower Clouds ca. 1903 pastel Art Institute of Chicago |
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| Odilon Redon Bell-Tower Keeper ca. 1905-1910 oil on canvas Ohara Museum of Art, Kurashiki, Japan |
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| Odilon Redon The Yellow Sail ca. 1905 pastel Indianapolis Museum of Art |
from THE HUMAN CONDITION
Can we depend on human intelligence to save itself? said Dr. Gas as he began pushing the horns of his mustache into his nostrils.
From what, Dr. Gas?
From itself, said Dr. Gas as he blew his mustache out into a handkerchief.
But, Dr. Gas, how can an intelligence, not intelligent enough not to be a danger to itself, be intelligent enough to save itself?
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| Odilon Redon Large Green Vase with Mixed Flowers ca. 1910-12 pastel Museum of Fine Arts, Boston |
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| Odilon Redon Closed eyes 1889 oil on canvas Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam |
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| Odilon Redon Two Young Girls among Flowers 1912 oil on canvas Museum of Fine Arts, Boston |
THE PADDLERS' SONG
. . . Paddling for twenty years against the current. We haven't moved. If anything, we've lost.
But the river closes the wounds of our displacements with neither scar nor pit.
The shore was always there. We could have tied our boat and come as far.
We might even have landed and put leaves together and had a roof, and watched the river with a pleasure grown aesthetic; the river that closes the wounds of our displacements with neither scar nor pit.
We might have traveled inland to great cities to sit in drawing rooms; and against the mild baritone of the cellos heard clever persons so describe the human condition as a place on a river, where men drown in the soft sounds of rushing water; the river that closes all the wounds of our displacements with neither scar nor pit.
We might even have flown (in the Twentieth Century men flew), to see the river of our struggle as one more thread from the great head of oceans . . . River that closes the wounds of our displacements with neither scar nor pit . . .
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| Odilon Redon Woman in Gothic arcade and Woman with flowers 1905 oil on canvas Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam |
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| Odilon Redon Roger and Angelica 1910 pastel Museum of Modern Art, New York |
from YOU
Out of nothing there comes a time called childhood, which is simply a path leading through an archway called adolescence. A small town there, past the arch called youth.
Soon, down the road, where one almost misses the life lived beyond the flower, is a small shack labeled, you.
– quoted poems and parts of poems by Russell Edson (1935-2014) as printed in The Wounded Breakfast (Middletown, Connecticut : Wesleyan University Press, 1985)