New Room Windows

Sample piece from New Room Windows

He had seen sectarian lines set, peace spread, trade grow.
A people invested in tulip bulbs,
learned the art of coffee from Java, of new colour from Sumatra,
of indoor comfort, framing it in oils,
of women reading, feet raised on platforms above the hard flag floor.

Vermeer was, perhaps, the best of them,
interiors of some grace, a play on mistress/
servant, white/dark, here and there, sea and land,
war and peace, male and female.
A difficult perspective; mixing always in and out,
sight-lines, thumblines, hair and headdress,
reading and feeling.

To make proportions true, to gain his balance,
he pierces her eye with a pin,
runs coloured ribbons to key quadrants.
Today, ribbons gone, perspective
the mere mechanics of the art course,
we would not know the pains he took,

but a small hole pierces the pupil of her eye.