Hello darling, back up in the upstate aerie, where birds are singing, the drier's going, I've got a fleece over my shoulders, and your Dora Maar is back from battle, getting from downstate to up. But it worked out, and here's a trophy photo to prove it, blurry unfortunately, probably my hand was trembling a bit as I snapped it, because I knew perfectly well that I wasn't supposed to take pictures there, and plus I'd been fumbling in my bag for the camera, and had doubtless attracted guards' attention... so this single snapshot is my little offering to you, that I was truly there. And do you know, one of the odd experiences of going to museums? I wish I could have returned, perhaps, to view the painting more closely. Because I was so blown away that it was there, that I didn't end up examining it very closely, sufficiently closely. What is sufficiently closely? How could I have imbibed, inhaled, savored that painting? Well, I could have. I know that there are ways to. I remember once, many many years ago, at the Guggenheim, viewing a Cezanne painting of a peach... and I admired the painting, and could see that it was a Cezanne, from the subject perhaps, and the palette, and the quivering sense of brushstrokes. And I was listening to an audioguide, and had paused before this Cezanne peach, and the curator intones in my ear, look at that peach... Cezanne doesn't use just gold, orange, yellow, apricot... shades one would associate with a peach.... there's lavender in there, and green, and black, and purple, and ochre...

I'm paraphrasing of course, from this immediate memory, from the distant past, but I remember the feeling of being so viscerally shocked to see --- because someone had literally whispered in my ear & pointed it out -- that indeed it was true. Cezanne's peach was full of absolute unexpectedness, that there was no way that my casual eye could register... but to focus close up on his technique... that these were the most improbable colors he chose to create this wholly realistic -- better than realistic -- because not photographic, but so fully felt, experienced, understood...

So I wish I could have had the wherewhithal somehow, to have absolutely apprehended the Bonnard -- oh just devour her, it, in some fashion. Really examine the details, the brushwork, the choice of colors, the tiniest decisions of dabs of paint that contribute to the whole astounding effect....

I won't ever have at that Bonnard again... not in the way that I had once been so fortunate to experience a Cezanne peach...

but I do look forward to the kisses and caresses of...
well, divine works who, in private, I may touch
and get to know, marvel over
kiss deeply and touch
to my hands'
and heart's content
as much as I wish
and with incredible exactitude relishing every inch
every dimple, curve, patch of hair, "unevenness of skin tone"
kisses in all those places, and then some ---