Large windows frame gold-dry hills

Across the valley from the modern

Art museum in black and white

 

The audience in white and black:

Dark pants, light shirts

White hair, older, subdued

 

Appreciative as the sound

Echoes from white walls, black

Frames, duotone photographs.

 

The exhibit: black pen on paper

Acrylic on wood

The music: zen

 

Flute plays a few stray notes,

Casual improvisation, a break:

Laughter rises, more chairs

 

More people, students

Children, locals and tourists

Gallery lighting bright white.

 

The space unfurls within

The sound textures, molded

Layers, the flute multiplies

 

Music shifts, fades— then

Talk, the audience waiting.

Next some piano rising and

 

Falling, tones like floating

Bubbles touch the paintings’

Painted surfaces, white

 

Faces, black chairs in rows.

Some viewers just strolling

Come for the art, others

 

Snooze sprawled on the floor.

It’s dark outside when we leave:

White moon on the black hills.

 

 

© by Emily Strauss.

Used with the author’s permission.