Ocean Park No. 52 (II)
One of the first things I ever posted to this blog was a poem I wrote for a creative writing class about a painting at the art museum two years ago. Today, I returned to the museum with my German class. Our assignment was to pick a piece and write a paragraph on it, using at least 8 da-/wo- verbindungen. Being a fan of circularity, I naturally wrote about the same painting. It works better on a piece of notebook paper, but anyway, here it is, in all its broken German glory (translation and old poem are beneath as well):
“OCEAN PARK NO. 52 (DIEBENKORN)”
Ich weiß nicht, wovon diese Gemälde handelt aber sie ist die Farbe von einem Manila Ordner und hat hauchdünne Linien, die rot und blau sind, wie dieses Stück Papier hat.
Sie erinnert mich daran, wie alte Ringbucheinlage manchmal vergilbt wird. Vergilbte Ringbucheinlage erinnert mich sinngemäß
daran, wie ich längst in einem 1st Grade Klassenzimmer inmitten der Crayolas und Sicherheitsscheren saß. Ich denke daran und dann bin ich noch mal da.
Die Lehrerin sagt uns, “Schreibt darüber, was ihr in fünfzehn Jahren sein werdet.”
Mein Papier bleibt leer. Ich starre daran. Ich weiß nicht, wie die Zukunft mich ändern wird, aber ich warte darauf.
Naja. Man kann nie wissen. Vielleicht dachte der Künstler daran, als er diese Gemälde machte.
translation:
I don’t know what this painting is about, but it’s manila-colored with thin lines, blue and red, like this piece of paper.
It reminds me of how old notebook paper yellows sometimes.
Yellowed notebook paper reminds me in turn of sitting in a 1st grade classroom amidst Crayolas and safety scissors. I think of that place, and I am there again.
The teacher tells us, “Write about what you will be in fifteen years.”
My paper remains blank. I stare at it. I don’t know how the future will change me, but I am waiting.
Oh, well. You never know. Maybe the artist was thinking of this when he made the painting.
poem:
big square.
very canvas-colored—
like manila folder
holding college-ruled loose-leaf
sheets with
red line,
blue lines,
ghost lines from
graphite erased,
and strange stains
dripping down
like gray-blue
milk—but mostly,
a very canvas-colored
painting,
layered like such a pale fish,
too pale to hide its
red gut,
blue veins,
ribcage just
fingernail-sized,
and terrified eye,
stunning white
like museum
walls—but mostly,
very canvas-colored—
a very canvas-colored
big square.
