Once we had an assignment in our poetry class to analyze a piece of art and write a poem that featured different perspectives regarding the piece. This could vary from the point of view of the work itself, the creator, the museum curator, etc. I decided to analyze “Scribe Medicine Trail” first from the perspective of a museum curator trying to analyze the piece and then from the perspective of the creator of the piece.
Right and Left
Look right to left, I say. Notice how the obsidian oil saturates the panels, hugging every groove and niche as it slithers across like a serpent. You can read the panel as well as I ---“Scribe Medicine Trail,” it whispers --- but how do I explain the message I didn’t imagine I’d have to tell? An absurd game of telephone, the meaning slipping away over time. I know it as intimately as its God, but I’m the misguided prophet, blindly spreading a message I don’t understand.
Look left to right, I say. Beyond that, I lose the words. I’m a God at a loss, looking at his own design, despite having the pattern stained into my skull. Do I want you to see the serpent as it stretches towards escape, the cells and scales as intricate as lace? Or did I design a trail that has been trampled on, while others overlap, overgrown over time? Is there a hidden story that slithers across the panel, a beginning and end, as you look left to right?