A New Year's Perspective

  I have always found something magical about a cork, especially those inscribed with a face and slogan. Often from The House of Jadot, the porous caps feature cherubim or some kind of demi god. So when French artist, Marie-France Riviere sent me  her beautiful image for the New Year, I thought of the woman’s countenance as an icon on a champagne cork, something that had been thrown away by a party goer and delivered haphazardly on my door step. Only this cap (fitted inside its wire framework), was enchanted. It was a gift given in the form of something disposable – something that would be transformed into color and depth, breath and spirit., a beginning infused with hope and imaginative splendor.

Aurora

Hers was the beautiful face etched
on a champagne cork, tossed on my door step
by some stranger toasting the new year.
At first, her features were outlined
in maroon ink -- but then as darkness lapsed
into daylight, morning suffused
her linear grace with hues of sky and sun,
the pallor of roses from San Remo. She became
the painted amulet in a wire basket, a token of luck
cast astray by some traveler
who couldn’t perceive her power, her purpose.

I lifted the cork, the lock which unlocked
the drink of golden grapes
thinking -- this is the face of January,
the singular gaze of expectation,
not the two headed God
of Roman Gates. She is the look
of dawn, of beginning that spawns faith
and spans a long bridge of bones;
our bodies reawakened, radiant
as a clean hemisphere of stars.
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The beautiful painting by Marie-France Riviere is entitled, "Bonne Annee", and can be found along with many other original and beautiful works by this exceptional artist at her online gallery --
http://www.griviere.com/expo2000/.