On Paul Signac’s

The Blessing of the Tuna Fleet at Groix

Signac painted the fishing boats straight on,

Five of them and a little skiff,

prows forward, masts splicing the air,

flags flying in the breeze of a most

temperate day, clouds, but not rain, the rippling

Atlantic waters contained in the bay.



The people, sticks of black behind the boats,

barely visible, but I bet the whole town

turned out for the send-off, at least one child

fished out, gasping, and the priest, rushing

the planks, wings of his stole flapping

behind him, ready to fling holy water aloft.



But the blessing belongs to the artist

who must have sketched the scene from his own boat

further out, the one he sailed from Mediterranean

port to port, all the way to Istanbul.

He painted a thousand dabs of color

he knew the eye would transform into fish for the catch.