Darth Vader At The Mcnay Poem by Bill Grace

Running through the impressionist landscape exhibit
Darth Vader was caught from the corner of my eye
I did not stop to obviously spy
Or nicely comment to him on his cape’s superior quality
It was not Halloween.

So dark this multimedia work of Robert Morris – 31
He had to leave it untitled
Put no corral upon its dark power
I can not tell – Dresden – Tokyo – perhaps World War II,
Research makes me guess
His sense of nuclear Armageddon approaching.

Some years before we came so close with Cuba
It was and is no joke this nuclear thing
This thing the artist can sense
That requires good but antithetical politicians to avoid
To keep a real Darth Vader from striking a McNay or Hermitage
Something as worthy of the struggle as an artist’s palette.