Conversazione Poem by gershon hepner

Like foliage that grows in cracks of walls
you do not strengthen mortar or the bricks,
but tickle with a fancy that enthralls
men’s heartstrings that you pluck like fiddlesticks.
You shade and blend into their walls, sfumato,
with smokelike efflorescence in their cracks,
but disappoint them like a squashed tomato,
placebo not for hypochondriacs.
Like walls that come alive when foliage grows,
men’s hearts you caused to crack though they were stony,
become the property that you foreclose
when you recoil from conversazione.


Francine Prose describes and Parmigianino an exhibition of 'Correggio and Parmigianino' at the Metropolitan Museum of Art until May 6 in the WSJ, February 12,2001. She writes:
The variety of works included here also illustrates the possibilities of what can be accomplished with a pencil, a brush, some ink and a bit of red chalk. There are elaborate, complex and precisely rendered scenes such as Correggio's 'Adoration of the Magi.' In this marvelous study, the faces of the Madonna and the Magi are individualized. Surprising details include tendrils of weedy foliage growing out from between the cracks in the stone walls; great attention and energy have been deployed to capture the tenderness and humility of the wise man kneeling to kiss the holy infant's foot. And the figures and drapery have been given a striking three- dimensionality with the sfumato (the smokelike shading and blending) technique for which Correggio was famous.


2/11/01,6/11/08