PAD 2 - Portrait

For today’s prompt, write a portrait poem. You can use an actual portrait to write an ekphrastic poem. Or think up an image from real life. Or fake life. Or don’t be so literal; instead of writing a poem that describes a portrait, use the poem to frame a moment or lifestyle or whatever. By the way, how many times did I type “or” in this paragraph?


Rembrandt as a Young Man


It's not that I want someone to notice me
lingering so long
leaning in
like I am in love

not with him
but with this moment
this room
this needing to lean in.

I need to lean in.

His curls are dark, largely, on the top and on the side
and in the deeper tufts
with the simplest lines, curled,
all colors, loose, simple, careless semi-circles, blue, viridian, cadmium,
sap green, ochre, burnt orange, where they almost catch on fire and then they vanish
there, near his eyes - burnt umber
in an umber field, the umber of the edge of him
pulsing
against some seafoam green
luminous making me a bit dizzy
and self-aware
- aware of looking
aware of my warm breathing and some light
cool on the back on my neck

                 so young

The top of his face
is in shadow
An odd shape of shadow
hides his eyes
- What is a portrait with such dimmed eyes?
I can't even see him.
It is like a bird has flown over him
or perhaps he enters a room, nearly,
or is in thought or in a place
- this is it -
in which he himself
in unaware
of the light
though he could feel it - not quite consciously -
emanate from the side of  his cheek,
the round bridge of his nose

What is happening?

Someone enters the gallery
- a guard - and I pull back
and adjust the straps on my purse
or look at the next painting

and when she moves on
I am back
leaning in
there where his check is so oddly lit
colored from the blood within
that is alive
- young blood, fresh,
and the darkened shape above
the eyes in darkness the hair
curled in, eclipsing
the old man we would come to know
so well
there
implied - not quite consciously -

No one is in the gallery
but me
and this young man
older boy
old man to be but later, later

in this moment
as it is a moment
he simply is
- is breathing between layers of value and glaze -
and I can see him

and then it happens
I see more
the dark is not so dark now
the shadow has changed only in MY eyes
it becomes cooler and soft
and out of that new field
he now looks at me
directly

he looks at me kindly
it is a benediction
it is a gaze across time

only the light
kept, held, dancing in the molecular layers of wash
could come to me this way
in the physical self of a painting
adjusting for the living eye

lean in
stay

and keep looking
keep looking

be a painter
live in phenomena

witness
the glory of color,
the humility of looking,
the physics of opening,
the triumph of sight

sight - that faculty of receiving and giving
in the exact same moment

dialogue of light
across centuries
as delicate as the last days
of youth

there!

lesson from a master