My misted eyes may never trust the art
across my room, for then the shadows part,
the pastels coalesce, the spirits rise
in chiaroscuro, free to liberate
the credulous invader of their rest--
creator and created in a test
of pose, and power, and palimpsest laid bare.

Perhaps it is a plan I cannot see.
The painter brought his child to virgin cloth,
and who am I to take his masterpiece
and filter it with tears, and dust, and years
of somnolence and then proclaim device?
No, this is mystery to savor, from
a mind perhaps unborn , and yet conceived
in us when masters rest, and knowing still,
decay is much too soon.
~