Matisse: 'The Red Studio'

There is no one here. But the objects: they are real. It is not As if he had stepped out or moved away; There is no other room and no Returning. Your foot or finger would pass Through, as into unreflecting water Red with clay, or into fire. Still, the objects: they are real. It is As if he had stood Still in the bare center of this floor, His mind turned in in concentrated fury, Till he sank Like a great beast sinking into sands Slowly, and did not look up. His own room drank him. What else could generate this Terra cotta raging through the floor and walls, Through chests, chairs, the table and the clock, Till all environments of living are Transformed to energy- Crude, definitive and gay. And so gave birth to objects that are real. How slowly they took shape, his children, here, Grew solid and remain: The crayons; these statues; the clear brandybowl; The ashtray where a girl sleeps, curling among flowers; This flask of tall glass, green, where a vine begins Whose bines circle the other girl brown as a cypress knee. Then, pictures, emerging on the walls: Bathers; a landscape; a still life with a vase; To the left, a golden blonde, lain in magentas with flowers scattering like stars; Opposite, top right, these terra cotta women, living, in their world of living's colors; Between, but yearning toward them, the sailor on his red cafe chair, dark blue, self-absorbed. These stay, exact, Within the belly of these walls that burn, That must hum like the domed electric web Within which, at the carnival, small cars bump and turn, Toward which, for strength, they reach their iron hands: Like the heavens' walls of flame that the old magi could see; Or those ethereal clouds of energy From which all constellations form, Within whose love they turn. They stand here real and ultimate. But there is no one here.