AUSTRALIA ~ The Antipodes

AUSTRALIA ~ The Antipodes
I love a sunburnt country / A land of sweeping plains / Of ragged mountain ranges / Of droughts and flooding rains / I love her far horizons / I love her jewel-sea / Her beauty and her terror / The wide brown land for me / ~ Dorothea Mackellar (1885-1968)

Followers

Wednesday, January 9, 2008

If I clean the windows it may change the light (on seeing "Girl with a Pearl Earring")


Cavernous rooms crammed with dark shapes…

But the eye follows the passing of a servant girl’s white cap…

Outside…
Craggy, dark-textured walls…
Sighing tones of dry biscuit…
Eternal midnights and old wines…
But always…
Somewhere…
A stream of light…

Jagged cries of a child from afar…
Grating bustles of a large kitchen at work…
Whispered servants’ secrets…
But the eyes see only a painting…
Images welded in time…
The peace of still life…
The calming touch of light…

Dark canal waters…bright flames…
Ragged outlines shuffle in a dim street…
Gathering quietly like moths…
Drawn instinctively to the flickering candlelights…
Silhouetted
In tall, foggy window frames…

The artist’s studio…
Filtered lights languish on
Aging colours
Of woods…cloths and papers…
The window is open…
The artist stands quietly by the servant girl…
Waves of chestnut brown hair resting gently on a white, soft-sleeved shirt…
Dark brown eyes…just a little higher
Than the luminous eyes of the white-capped servant girl…

Two artists…
Sharing the sky as one…

The clouds…the colour?
White is the immediate answer…
And then…the answer from the soul…
Yellow…blue…grey…

Not white…
And the servant girl’s cap is laid to rest
For brief and stolen dreams…
Exchanged for a bright wide headband
Of vibrant, electric blue…

For a little while in time…
Borrowed time…
Made time…
They mixed the world in colour…

She was his melody…
He tuned her soul…

And she dared to move a studio chair…
Dared to voice the secret…

She looked trapped…
She needed more light…

New light…

If I clean the windows the light may change…
Rather…
The chair must move…


The great moment had to be…
The moment when a little blood fell…

A tiny sacrifice for a single pearl…

Welded in time…
Moistened lips…
Eyes of glistening white light…

The face of a servant girl…
Framed in an electric-blue headband…

Touched with a single pearl tear-drop…

Slightly turned to her artist…

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

a comment to that piece of work.....speechless...

Have A Dynamic Day!

Anonymous said...

Gorgeous! I read your words and I am transported. My favorite line: "She was his melody, He tuned her soul."
Marvelous gift...to take others on a journey with you through your words.

CALENDAR

Tasmania

Tasmania
A place of beauty in the Western Tiers

Tasmania

Tasmania
View near Blackwood Park Cottages, Mole Creek

New Landscapes

New Landscapes
New Worlds

Archive of Blog Quotes

  • A perfect summer day is when the sun is shining, the breeze is blowing, the birds are singing, and the lawn mower is broken. ~James Dent
  • Autumn is an introspective season when stray thoughts of the mind dive into the mystique of the soul - Gemma Wiseman
  • Autumn is the bridesmaid of Summer and the flowergirl of Winter ~ Gemma Wiseman
  • Autumn whispers the tones of yesterday in a minor key ~ Gemma Wiseman
  • Love is born / With a dark and troubled face, / When hope is dead / And in the most unlikely place; / Love is born, / Love is always born. - Michael Leunig's Christmas Song Cycle "Southern Star"
  • Spring paints the stars of heaven in Earth colours ~ Gemma Wiseman
  • Summer sizzles with a sibilant hush / Broken by dreams of / Clinking ice ~ Gemma Wiseman
  • The object of a new year is not that we should have a new year. It is that we should have a new soul. - G.K. Chesterton
  • Winter is an etching, spring a watercolor, summer an oil painting and autumn a mosaic of them all. - Stanley Horowitz
  • Winter is the fire, simmering lonely in the soul ~ Gemma Wiseman
  • Winter is the shadow, the etching of the seasons in the mist ~ Gemma Wiseman

Google Analytics

The Inner Light of the Spirit

The Inner Light of the Spirit
The Spirit of Inner Light

Lady Gemma

My Peculiar Aristocratic Title is:
Lady Gemma the Unique of Walk upon Water
Get your Peculiar Aristocratic Title

LinkWithin

Related Posts with Thumbnails