Anselm Kiefer, 1998, Mixed media on panel, Blanton Museum of Art
Splattered gravel, burned-out forests, residue
from forklifts, excavators, back hoes
glued onto this panel and taking up
what seems the whole wall so you can’t walk by,
you’re sucked into a mammoth
3D sinkhole, staring at these clumped twigs
like abandoned camp fires, or what’s left
of flattened or fire-gutted houses,
as if, with one spark, leaves, birds, lizards,
anything that wiggled or fluttered was gone,
leaving only crumbled stone and dried out
splinters, as if you’re peering down from above the planet
at ridges, fault lines, escarpments, canyons
that resemble the land down your own street
gone to bulldozers, gutted, ripped
of root and vine, the rock bed under
the trees split into rubble
to be scraped away before foundations are poured,
as if the ground hadn’t been foundation enough,
but this huge piece is about what’s left after
everything’s been ground
down, after we’ve exploded it all,
taken ourselves out, and the only thing left
will be faint tracings of the stories
of stars you used to look up to.
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