CATHERINE

Does your gaze probe depths your heart

alone knows? Does it trace

the damask roses upon the velvet rug?

Your eyes wear an uncertain light,

as though seeking a name for your hope,

melding the ephemeral

with the ineffable into a disquieting epistle

of blood, history and vision.

You stand before a master immortaliser,

conspicuous yet insubstantial,

resigned to this vacant hour, a pause

undesired yet imposed,

not the glutting respite you would greet.

Autumn’s leaf-drunk rays dapple your locks,  

a fleeting reprieve of amber-green

from reconciling shadows with darkness,

as you await your labours.

Blessed labours, for within their bounds,

you are alchemist and artificer,

in this world but not of it, for you feel and

speak unperceived; with your task

you breathe as one, hands and senses

surrendering to scents and hues,

buffing and shining a bounty of grapes and

plums, setting cabochon clusters

of fragrant amethyst and garnet into gilded

bowls with the faithful craft

of the King’s jeweller.

An unsung song weighs heavy in your throat, 

as you hurry past a laughing fount

to the rosarium beneath a sky where clouds

were once ships of dreams,

now transformed into a solace of angels

suspended in prayer. Into a bower of saffron

and ochre you stumble, as a grain of gold

settles upon your eyelash,

parting the dark. A new force colours

your gait, the blood-deep rhythm of the tribe

that dons nature’s pigments and sings

with the winds. Eve walks among late roses,

she, who braved the elements fell-clad

and unshod with earth between her toes.

Her footsteps sweep and echo across the ages

as she goes to compose floral poesis,

slowing to curve around a stray citrine shoot

glistening as a lost gem

through a crack in the paving. A smile ghosts

across her face, this witness

to a silent mutiny, for a moment of living won,

a moment returned to life.

Her own voice calls from across a world to

brighter grief, to a fire that is

the promise of home, of the spirit’s dwelling.

© 2020 Lilium candidum

Lily’s Verse

Image: Portrait of an African woman Catherine

Artist: Albrecht Dürer

Source: www.wikiart.org