on seeing Turner’s Lake: Fighting Bucks at Petworth House
A gang of toddlers, held back by ropes like the deer
outside, sit cross-legged or belly-down
under the painting, entranced by each other’s newness
and collective heft. An afternoon pegged
in managed chaos by mothers who crop what they can
of the masterpiece, its supple sentience –
a lake that breathes, daisy-flick of cricketers
transient as the herd roaming in glaze
through our minds in a park gouged for fake water
that lies beyond these windows.
Inside the curlicued frame, sunset rusts between branches,
softens the children’s upturned faces.
They clap, make half-formed sentences, wail a little
when pulled from touching the paint.
