Invitation From Latvia By Marjorie Evasco Poem by RIC BASTASA

(Inspired by “Big Sea # 1 “by Vija Celmins and “Penelope as Painter” by John
Berger,)
I.
It is the sea, Vija, before my eyes —
Shimmered by the constant measure of your hand’s
Pressure on trough and crest: each wave
Crumpled by shadows the wind makes
As it blows from the frozen steppes
Of your knowing heart. But you are
Nowhere in your painting.
You have stepped into anonymity,
Thirty years an explorer with your graphite
And oils, tracing the world’s visible lines,
Searching the mysterious vast,
The mast of your pencil or brush
Following the light in the eye,
In the disciplined patience
Of an old hand of the Baltic.
II.
Big Sea #1 reminds John Berger of Penelope
On her own odyssey of beauty and faith,
Ravelled strand upon bright-colored strand
Measuring each day’s exacting frame,
He calls your way of loving hand made,
Hand maiden to the daily art, moving inch
By slow inch with allegiance to matter,
To what truly matters in the long stretch:
Design the careful eye sees, waiting
For images to reach their own completion
That the artist’s hand may fix the vision
To memory: stones from the desert,
Nightskies of our wondering,
The threatening distances only patience
Or love can warm into wonder.
III.
In the Visayan Sea, Vija, lies an island
Shaped like a water buffalo cooling itself
After a day’s work under the sun
Pulling the plow furrow after furrow
Of possible plenitude. On this island
Called Apo, old women call the fishermen
“Weavers of the Sea, ” criss-crossing
The waters Furrow after furrow
For the meagre meal. The sea which surrounds
Their island resounds to the sea of your memory
As you compose the tones, precise as music
Heard from the lips of a conch shell, bringing news
of the world’s magnificent indifference
To which we give homage
With an old and deliberate tenderness.