Saturday, June 13, 2009

THE ROSE BOOKS OF ANATOLY KONENKO

THE ROSE BOOKS OF ANATOLY KONENKO

[to the artist Anatoly Konenko and his rose books]*

waiting for the beautiful ship to come

we stood on sinking continents
our eyes flooded with meteor showers

in a compact room

an artist sat
making books out of dried

rosepetals

children in their sleep

waiting for the beautiful ship to come
might never know

the roseleaves he was turning

at precisely the midnight
of the world

bird shadows over the blue

green melting poles could understand;
sensing the end of all auroras

they sang only for him

the artist arranging rose pages
binding with flowers the ...

with fine mauve stitching that

would not come undone

rose inscriptions

rose inscriptions
rose inscriptions

was all that God could read


mary angela douglas 13 june 2009



*a contemporary Russian artist from Omsk who makes tiny books out of dried rosepetals and other things in amazing miniture. He made a book for his wife out of rosepetals inscribed with Pushkin's poems about roses.