Big Marine Lake, Minnesota

In the foreground a battered beach chair
tries to show the nearly shadowless beach
and the younger chair just behind
how perspective is done.

Nothing pays it much attention.
The dock, for example, tries to do it all
with foreshortening alone--show off!

Well, somehow everything ends up
where it should be, distanced by shape
or tint or size or shadow or just our
knowing where, for example, clouds belong,

but the old chair is bitter.
Don't feel bad, old chair. Only you
do it all, secreting distances
within your distances. You command
more perspective in your plastic lap
than the whole lake with me
swimming in it. And see

how my sister-in-law's legs
counterpoint your curves. Cheer up,
old chair--nothing else can touch you
for tangibility. This is
your painting.

Dean Blehert

Last Updated: October 6, 2002