Mick Escott

TWO CANDLES                                                                                           

Uccello and Tintoretto were Renaissance artists exploring perspective

 Is this how Uccello found it –

perspective –

or what led Tintoretto

to hang models acutely

for foreshortening

on his canvas or altar piece?

Just two candles

a red one nearer – at eye level,

resting on an inverted coffee lid,

a blue one on a holder – Norwegian souvenir –

its vertical path a land fault,

disrupting the red on a relief map.

They yield enough to write

with the drama of shadows,

while there’s something to be said

of the phenomenon –

innate mystery –

through musing which must follow.

The Norwegian stand emphasizes

the blue of that blue –

which blue - the right tone for Oslo?

And the red?

Two straight lines, a third dimension –

perhaps Uccello saw it like that.