MATTHEW ROB BROWN

Alumnus

ENOUGH FLASHLIGHT

Annonciation - Flandres - Milieu du XVIe siècle (Musée Cluny, Paris)

A single Angel Gabriel, enough flashlight, filling surely not waiting for the sponsor, the painter therefore summoned an army of angels in order to make the most convincing scene! (Google translation of the original French caption.)


Into the narrow room a ladder, like Jacob's, comes down; Gabriel and his entourage all in light at once appear, to infuse it with a word from God which waits upon Mary's reply. Above the window the Holy Spirit, the dove, also hovers. No action, no overshadow, no salvation, without Mary's Yes.

Blue Mary: her book, her lily, her curtained bed. Room more sumptuous than we perhaps imagine, a place fit for this Sixteenth Siècle Mary, who has cast her eyes downward, as if to catch the angel's message not with eyes or ears alone, but with heart. She will consider it there, turn it, view it in every facet, long after she has waved it into life.

Enough flashlight! I don't know what to do with my emptiness. This cloud of dark at midday—I wish you 'd show yourself, send Gabriel to bring a word with tongs from the forge, another word—but could I take it if you did?

Quiet, two figures converse in the street beyond her Gothic window
—more like tongues of aspen by the Seine, than those of angels.

MATTHEW ROBB BROWN EARNED THE MASTER OF FINE ARTS IN POETRY FROM ASHLAND UNIVERSITY IN AUGUST 2016; HE WORKED CLOSELY WITH ANGIE ESTES AS HIS THESIS MENTOR AND ATTENDED ASHLAND'S FIRST RESIDENCY IN PARIS WITH ANGIE IN 2015. HE GRADUATED FROM SAGINAW VALLEY STATE UNIVERSITY AND HAS BEEN WRITING AND PUBLISHING POETRY FOR OVER 50 YEARS. HIS POEMS HAVE APPEARED IN SEEDS IN THE BLACK EARTH, BELLOWING
ARK, CHRISTIANITY TODAY, CHRISTIANITY AND LITERATURE, THE GREEN RIVER REVIEW, THE COUNTRY OF THE RISEN KING, (GRAND RAPIDS, MICHIGAN, BAKER BOOK HOUSE, 1978) BARKING SYCAMORES (NEURODIVERGENT LITERATURE AND ART), LANDLOCKEDLYRES.COM, AND ANCIENT PATHS LITERARY MAGAZINE. A POEM IS FORTHCOMING IN IMAGE JOURNAL.