“Vexierbild”, 2 parts, 42 x 60 cm each,
The “lost paradise” is an expression of a painful longing for something valuable that one once possessed but then lost again. It implies the longing look back and the inevitable walk forward.
“If I die today after writing
This poem – God will have
Fulfilled his promise to show
Me Paradise – then take it away.
I want my poems cremated,
To vanish in the falling snow,
Dented words and phrases
To melt in the spring thaw;
Or better yet, load them onto
A boy’s sailboat and set me
Adrift, at last, in the fountain
Of the Jardin du Luxembourg.”
John Kay
