A poem by Ciaran Carson
John Constable, Study of Clouds, 1822
The sound of water escaping from mill dams, etc., willows, old rotten planks, Slimy posts and brickwork, I love such things,' said Constable. Also, trees and wind And clouds reflected in the water, as shown by his limpid Water-meadows at Salisbury. His father owned watermills and windmills; he understood weather from childhood. Of hail squalls in spring he had this to say: 'The clouds accumulate in very large masses, And from their loftiness seem to move but slowly; immediately on these large clouds Appear numerous opaque patches, which are only small clouds passing rapidly Before them. Those floating much nearer the earth may perhaps fall in with A stronger current of wind, which drives them with greater rapidity , from light to shade Through the lanes of the clouds; hence they are called by wind-millers and sailors, Messengers, And always portend bad weather.' Therefore Constable learned the craft of chiaroscuro.
Ten years ago it was your going through what had to be gone through. First the little blip, Then the bigger blip. We'd scan the clouds for whatever augury they bore, clouds That bloom and dim from marble sheen to darks of silver at the edges, in the throes of being And becoming. Shown what showed on the screen, we wondered, what do we know of Our bodies, the internal country undiscovered until now, and then not understood? Now It has befallen me to go through what will be, we gaze into the clouds . and listen to the sound Of water in the Waterworks… I open a book to see what Constable . recorded one day on Hampstead Heath: '31st Sepr 10-11 o'clock morning looking Eastward A gentle wind to the East'— The moving cumulus caught on the fly between hand and eye? Study, as in 'an act of learning'? Let's say a happenstance of Constable and cloud, the final picture uninterpretable— Quasi-shapely, cauliflower-plump, with just a hint of dark top right to prove the chiaroscuro.
Ciaran Carson (1948-2019)
Image: John Constable: Study of Clouds, 1822
