A lesson in Ekphrasis

See the tiny legs near the boat to the right of the painting? That's Icarus - The Greek fellow who was overambitious with his wings of wax. He flew too close to the sun, melting his malleable feathers and drowning in the sea. Wikipedia, the ever reliable source (Cringe) describes Ekphrasis as "the graphic, often dramatic description of a visual work of art. In ancient times it referred to a description of any thing, person, or experience. The word comes from the Greek ek and phrasis, 'out' and 'speak' respectively, verb ekphrazein, to proclaim or call an inanimate object by name." In today's context, it is the translation of the visual to the verbal, or the image to the writing, and our task in seminar was a suitably dramatic description of the above work of art, in the written style of William Carlos Williams. Despite my previous aquiescence that anyone could write like he did, I found the exercise surprisingly difficult. My own past ventures into the field of creative writing preferred a more florid, archaic style, and I found it difficult to reduce the language without being reductive of the meaning.

The hot sun beats down

Ships enter port

Admiral's hats observe

Woollen sheep.

So much life.

A splash in the sea

I find my effort cringeworthy, but it has been faithfully reproduced from my scrap of ten minute workshopped paper to prove the following:
1) WCW's style is not to be mocked(!) because
2) It's harder than it looks.

My creative slant was similar to WCW's own poem (Titled: 'Landscape, With the Fall of Icarus'), and that of the original painting Pieter Bruegel - That an event so subjectively monumental is so insignificant to others. Someone can be literally drowning, and yet not attract any attention.

It was interesting that when I was searching for the above image, google provided a few 'cropped' versions of Bruegel's paintings, where the middle section, focussing on the people in the foreground, made the entirety of the image. The ship to the right, under which lies Icarus' flailing leg, and the integral, though not necessarily most visually central, theme is altogether removed (Making the painting, just 'landscape', surely?)

I played with punctutation, hoping to hint at an ambiguity with a lack of a culminating full stop, in a similar way to that of WCW. Though I didn't do this with a particular meaning in mind, I thought that if it was left open, a reader would speculate a purpose or reason, creating a welcomed personal engagement, much like the lack of capitalisation at the start of The Red Wheelbarrow. The lines

'So much life.

A splash in the sea'

are set in juxtaposition, to show that the focus in the image is that of vitality, as opposed to the dying Icarus, who represents mortality. The first line introduces the 'hot sun', bringing the poem full circle, with the resultant 'splash in the sea', showing that even though both Cause and Effect are present, they are not the main visual focus. For, with this group of poets, the image is the most important element of the poem.
The language is simple, to mirror Williams' dislike for Pound and Eliot's academic elitism and allusions to foreign languages. My choice of the word 'woollen' for the description of sheep is because it is almost ononmatopoeic, in both its simplicity and nostalgic pastoral connotations.