Don'T Draw The Blinds Poem by gershon hepner

Fra Filippo, a Man and Woman at a Casement,
betrothed, a couple sitting face to face,
with eyes out of alignment. Leave them in the basement
until they’re ready for the marriage dais,
because until they want to meet each other's gaze
there cannot be a marriage of true minds;
don't put them through the mill and matrimonial maze
until they’ve looked behind each others’ blinds.

Today, of course, we tend to come and see before
love conquers us. We marry, but soon after,
no more by love bedazzled, we decide to draw
the blinds too soon––disorder of the garter
bestowed on us not by a monarch but the con-
sequence of our prenuptial blindness that
prevents us foolishly from checking on
the person who’ll invade our habitat.

Roberta Smith writes in the NYT about the exhibition, “Art and Love in Renaissance Italy, ” at the Metropolitan Museum (11/21/08) . Linda and I saw a preview of the exhibition. I wrote this on a bus traveling from NYC to Boston. Smith states:
And imperfections don’t necessarily rule out masterpiece status; they may add enduring mystery. One of the highlights of the exhibition is the Met’s great painting of a bridal couple, made by Fra Filippo Lippi in the early 1440s. The young man and woman assume the standard pose — stark profile — that recurs on vases, plates, rings and pendants as well as paintings throughout the show. The bride, shown in left profile and lavishly robed, bejeweled and coiffed, occupies her small interior like a big, expensive doll in its box. The profile of the young man intrudes, just barely, from a window on the left. It is as if he is not supposed to be in the picture but couldn’t help himself, and can’t believe his great luck. And yet something is off. The catalog notes that their eyes don’t meet, but more than that, the figures barely face each other. While he looks in from the window, she seems to look out an implied doorway next to it. Their misalignment contributes to her objectification: she is not really seen. It also keeps the viewer on tenterhooks. You hope for the best but suspect mismatched expectations.
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11/22/08