another matter altogether

"Maria Sibylla Merian's paintings are another matter altogether.
Her lines are as crisp as Marrel's are muted;
She draws with the clinical precision of Durer or Hofenagel,
but at the same time her saturated colors collide in daring,
almost fluorescent contrasts.

Rather than showing animal & vegetable
@ some celestially perfect moment,
she combines the different stages
of growth and decay,
collapsing
an expanse of time
into a single image.

Her flowers will appear
on the same branch as buds,
as new blossoms, full-blown, withered, gone to fruit.
Leaves sprout, flourish, go brown, die, and drop,
many of them half eaten by caterpillars.

The insects, too, are shown as they pass
through every stage
of their strange
cyclical lives.

Like Caravaggio before her,
she registers
the passage of time
by documenting several of its phases,
calling attention
to the immanent imperfection
of it all."

found poem in NY Review of Books
review by Ingrid D. Rowland