 |
| attributed to Giovanni Angelo del Maino Allegory of Abundance ca. 1520 drawing Musée du Louvre |
 |
| Bernardino Campi Allegory of Fire ca. 1540-50 drawing (study for chimneybreast fresco) Musée du Louvre |
 |
| Battista Dossi Figure carrying Swags of Grape Vine (Allegory of Autumn) before 1548 drawing Musée du Louvre |
 |
| Nicolò dell'Abate Allegory of Temperance ca. 1560-70 drawing Musée du Louvre |
 |
| Nicolò dell'Abate Allegory of Charity ca. 1560-70 drawing Musée du Louvre |
 |
| Nicolò dell'Abate Allegory of Virtue ca. 1550 drawing Musée du Louvre |
 |
| Paolo Fiammingo Allegory of Air ca. 1580-90 oil on canvas private collection |
 |
| Paolo Fiammingo Allegory of Water ca. 1580-90 oil on canvas private collection |
 |
| Paolo Fiammingo Ascension of Virtue ca. 1580-90 oil on canvas private collection |
 |
| Charles Le Brun Personification of the Month of June ca. 1660 drawing (figure study for ceiling decoration at the Château de Vaux-le-Vicomte) Musée du Louvre |
 |
| Pierre Mignard Allegory of Time ca. 1692 drawing (study for ceiling fresco at the Château de Versailles) Musée du Louvre |
 |
| attributed to Jean-Baptiste Pigalle Study for Allegory of Winter before 1785 drawing Musée du Louvre |
 |
| Pietro de Angelis Allegorical Figure of Spring ca. 1790 drawing, with watercolor private collection |
 |
| Andrea Appiani Personification of Temperance 1808 drawing (study for fresco) Musée du Louvre |
 |
| Andrea Appiani Personification of Justice 1808 drawing (study for fresco) Musée du Louvre |
Some Feel Rain
Some feel rain. Some feel the beetle startle
in its ghost-part when the bark
slips. Some feel musk. Asleep against
each other in the whiskey dark, scarcely there.
When it falls apart, some feel the moondark air
drop its motes to the patch-thick slopes of
snow. Tiny blinkings of ice from the oak,
a boot-beat that comes and goes, the line of prayer
you can follow from the dusking wind to the snowy owl
it carries. Some feel sunlight
well up in blood-vessels below the skin
and wish there had been less to lose.
Knowing how it could have been, pale maples
drowsing like a second sleep above our temperaments.
Do I imagine there is any place so safe it can't be
snapped? Some feel the rivers shift,
blue veins through soil, as if the smokestacks were a long
dream of exhalation. The lynx lets its paws
skim the ground in snow and showers.
The wildflowers scatter in warm tints until
the second they are plucked. You can wait
to scrape the ankle-burrs, you can wait until Mercury
the early star underdraws the night and its blackest
districts. And wonder. Why others feel
through coal-thick night that deeply colored garnet
star. Why sparring and pins are all you have.
Why the earth cannot make its way towards you.
– Joanna Klink (2010)