Twelfth Morning; Or What You Will

Twelfth Morning; Or What You Will

by Elizabeth Bishop

Like a first coat of whitewash when it’s wet,
the thin gray mist lets everything show through:
the black boy Balthazár, a fence, a horse,
a foundered house,

—cement and rafters sticking from a dune.
(The Company passes off these white but shopworn
dunes as lawns.) “Shipwreck,” we say; perhaps
this is a housewreck.

The sea’s off somewhere, doing nothing. Listen.
An expelled breath. And faint, faint, faint
(or are you hearing things), the sandpipers’
heart-broken cries.

The fence, three-strand, barbed-wire, all pure rust,
three dotted lines, comes forward hopefully
across the lots; thinks better of it; turns
a sort of corner…

Don’t ask the big white horse, Are you supposed
to be inside the fence or out? He’s still
asleep. Even awake, he probably
remains in doubt.

He’s bigger than the house. The force of
personality, or is perspective dozing?
A pewter-colored horse, an ancient mixture,
tin, lead, and silver,

he gleams a little. But a gallon can
approaching on the head of Balthazár
keeps flashing that the world’s a pearl, and I,
I am

its highlight! You can hear the water now,
inside, slap-slapping. Balthazár is singing.
"Today’s my Anniversary," he sings,
"the Day of Kings."


Not only is this poem appropriate, since it's Epiphany, but it is also fascinating to me after becoming more familiar with Elizabeth Bishop's interest in painting. From the first lines, "Like a first coat of whitewash when it’s wet, / the thin gray mist lets everything show through," I am reminded of painting. In her prose reflections on a Brazilian poet she admired, Gregorio Valdes (several of whose paintings were exhibited in New York recently), she writes about how he, too, lets the background show through,

"That day we bought one of the few pictures he had on hand--a still life of Key West fruits such as a coconut, a mango, sapodillos, a watermelon, and a sugar apple, all stiffly arranged against a blue background. In this picture the paint had cracked slightly, and examining it I discovered one eccentricity of Gregorio's painting. The blue background extended all the way to the tabletop and where the paint had cracked the blue showed through the fruit. Apparently he had felt that since the wall was back of the fruit he should paint it there, before he could go on and paint the fruit in front of it."

Certain of Bishop's pictures similarly work with the foregrounding of odd plants and trees that allow, in yet another way, the background to show through:


The rest of the poem plays with perspective. The barbed-wire fence "comes forward hopefully." The horse (is he inside the fence or outside of it?) is bigger than the house. Balthazar, the boy in the poem, named after one of the three kings, is the highlight of the world's pearl.

Here Bishop is wonderful--she's highlighting something that you don't expect to be highlighted--a little boy with a gallon can of water on his head. How appropriate to pick the Feast of Epiphany to do it! On the one hand, Epiphany celebrates the arrival of the three kings, and the little boy starkly contrasts with a king. On the other hand, Epiphany is also about the welcoming of the Gentiles to worship Christ. It celebrates the inclusion of others into God's plan. In this sense, it is the perfect day to focus on the little boy with a gallon can of water on his head.


(picture, pictures)