Poetry
Jacquemard and Julia
Translated by Mary Ann Caws
Once the grass, at the hour when the roads of earth were harmonious in their decline, lifted its blades tenderly and turned on its lights. The horsemen of the day were born in the look of their love and the castles of their beloveds contained as many windows as the abyss holds slight storms.
Once the grass knew a thousand devices not in contradiction. It was the providence of those faces bathed in tears. It enchanted the animals, lent shelter to error. Its expanse was comparable to the sky which has vanquished the fear of time and softened the suffering.
Once the grass was good to the madmen and hostile to the executioner. It was espousing the threshold of always. The games that it invented had wings to their smile (games absolved and just as fleeting). It was hard for none of those who, losing their way, hope to lose it forever.
Once the grass prescribed that night’s worth is less than its power, that springs don’t complicate their course for the fun of it, that seed kneeling down is already half in the bird’s beak. Once, earth and sky hated each other but earth and sky lived together.
The inexhaustible drought runs off. Man is a stranger to dawn. However , in pursuit of the life that can’t yet be imagined, there are wills vacillating, murmurs facing each other, and children safe and sound who are discovering.
RECOMMENDED ARTICLES

Tomas Vu: The Man Who Fell to Earth 76/22
By Jonathan GoodmanJUNE 2022 | ArtSeen
Tomas Vu, born in Saigon in 1963, moved with his family to El Paso, Texas, at the age of ten. He received his BFA from the University of Texas at El Paso, and took his MFA at Yale. Currently, he is head of Columbia Universitys print-making center. His current show, The Man Who Fell to Earth 76/22 is taking place at The Boiler, a non-profit showing space that is part of the Elm Foundation, located in Williamsburg.

The earth leaked red ochre
By William CorwinJUNE 2022 | ArtSeen
The earth leaked red ochre is a quote from the artist Cecilia Vicuña, and in the hands of curator Real Christian, this phrase becomes a tool for extracting and discerning traditional, Indigenous, and local narratives about the land that have been buried or become entangled with those of colonial presences and oppressors.
Tomas Vu: The Man Who Fell to Earth 76|22
By Amanda Millet-SorsaJUNE 2022 | ArtSeen
The Boiler in Williamsburg, Brooklyn opened during the pandemic in 2020 as an extension of the ELM Foundations programming, and invites contemporary artists to create installations and exhibitions in its space, previously run by Pierogi Gallery from 20092015. The current show, The Man Who Fell to Earth 76|22, by artist Tomas Vu, is his first solo show in New York since 2008. The raw industrial space exudes an extraterrestrial feeling, perfect for a show whose title recalls David Bowies central role in the eponymous 1976 movie.
Philip Pearlstein: I Love Mud
By Jessica HolmesDEC 21-JAN 22 | ArtSeen
The accumulations of a sociable, cultivated, and well-traveled lifetime became the subjects of the watercolor paintings now on view in I Love Mud, Philip Pearlsteins current exhibition at Betty Cuningham Gallery.