Retort to the Anti-Abstractionists

The world had grown too complicated, so
He went back to the cause of things and laid
The fiery day within an early shade.
It was impossible to see things grow.

And this he knew and meant. Do not believe
This picture was achieved without much care.
The man drew dangerously toward despair.
Trying to show what inward eyes perceive.

The pattern now demands our firm attention,
But still spectators say, ‘What does it mean?
This is not anything that I have seen.’
There is so much the painter could not mention.

His picture shows the meaning, not the things-
The look without the face, flight without wings.

Elizabeth Jennings. 1967. Elizabeth Jennings Collected Poems 1967. London: Macmillan.