The Last Line

Word Count

 

Another in a limited number of Autumns comes:

When the sun slants through the sumac at noon,

I see the last summer light slipping under leaves

Tipped in pale gold. . .But it’s a fine and welcome

Light, still warm through the window panes, motes

Spangling the room like stars. I linger here so

I can watch the night approach me, study each

Increment of change, and feel no loss. The words,

Too, limited and fading, finding solace in silence.

 

 

Woman with a Lute

 

In the raking light of time the foreground’s hard to see,

But we can surmise the chair is wood, lion’s head

Roaring eternally. It’s not the art of light and dark

That gives the girl such anima (we witness

The pause between breaths, the short-lived

Note of the lute no longer hanging in the air;

Even the birds have paused, deferring to Vermeer);

It’s the air he’s painted, the air manifested

In her hair, fingers, gaze. Chiaroscuro

Is a ghost in the room, the intelligence of silence

Defined by light: The grace of each moment,

Now and now and now. As if the artist was always

Present, now, capturing on canvas this ekphrasis.