Still Life
static: from the Latin sto, stare, to stand.
Once there were four green apples arranged
In a simple pyramid on a white china plate.
Once a painter rendered them on a cheap canvas
That was left hanging in the kitchen of the house
She bought soon after a truck plowed through
The windshield of the car her husband was driving.
In the remodeled kitchen that still let in a draft,
After toast and tea, she would stand before the frame.
From the shadow limning the apples’ bottom edges
She could almost hear a low hum, the static of objects
Pulled through time, the slight hiss of their resistance,
The one sound when everything is standing still.
Colonel Lindbergh Returns, 1948
On the Pennsylvania State Road Atlas
Still Life