It doesn't matter what Edouard Manet
chose to do with his eyes and hands
He could have created the same
sensations
with clay or a dictionary full of words
Instead some great loneliness touched
his intellectual acuity to gain the
silence
of his paints so well we can hear the
note
It is what happens to the old we know
when they sink into their last years
One look from them and we are judged
to our depth in full knowledge
of our frailties and imperfections
so much so that we leave the old alone
in their smaller worlds with numb hands
In clay the old artist can feel every
grain
instinctively knowing when to stop
pushing it around into the form he
expects
Is there enough water and more
questions
filter the information through fingers
and eyes
more sensations than we know exist
until their crafts explode out of their
worlds
Here, Manet, lets his subject stand
alone
to hold a fife that normally rests
inside a brass tube that contains and
protects
or is this brass tube not a protective
item
instead being another instrument with
which
the boy produces the sound his fellows
and the moment of marshal music
required
The sash that hangs around his shoulder
is not simply one piece of cloth sewn
together
but joined so neatly to a brass ring
that seems
to be as polished as the buttons on his
black tunic
brass that has always lead the parade
and yet there are no drummers or
coronets
along side for Manet to exploit in
equal daubs
It is shadow that lends the music to
this boy
the dark line beneath the sash or
behind
the fife on the palm of his hand so
unnoticed
by everyone except the artist himself
who sees this light and the lack of it
in oils
in unexpected overtones of the note
being played
by the boy in the red pants and
spat-covered shoes
Where is this piper besides the eye of
the painter
though we are to believe his place is
among
other musicians as his eyes betray the
concentration
necessary when others vibrate columns
of air
in unseen instruments standing at the
side
of a road in a small French town where
Manet
sees these scarlet pantaloons with a
black stripe
The boy's cap is jauntily tilted to his
right
perhaps like other boys in the
invisible band
or just an expression of his own
youthful style
this cap with red crown and gold braid
adds nothing to the music but is the
child's crown
that Edouard provides to this youthful
musician
playing unknown music on a ghost street
Barry G. Wick
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