This Holds More Than This Knows

You know, says Frank Stella

To the BBC News,

I’ve been sick for awhile,

The past six to to eight months.

It’s debilitating.

I won’t finish models

I’ve started. That’s a fact.

Being sick has made me

See the world a new way.

It’s not as interesting

As it sounds. I’m happy

To come here, to be here,

And we do what we can.

He laughs gently and shrugs.

The last shot of the clip,

Maybe taken by drone,

Pulls away from green fields,

Where three of his sculptures

Stand, appearing massive

At first, then receding

Into just grass and trees.

As a painterly young,

Abstract minimalist,

He’d sometimes notched the frames

Of canvases, as if

To suggest that they knew

The way the lines inside

Would approach their borders,

As if frames should echo

Surface geometries,

But outdoors refuses

To clearly acknowledge

It knows what it’s holding.