Dark sweet apron'd blooms
tailored in cotton and wool
four images of their missing mother
arranged naturally between two rooms
sisters
reversing into adolescent shade
retiring from infancy
secure in their father's rooms
but alone for now and cautious
of the throbbing artist
and although they sat for days
in a still-life arrangement
he could not erase from his heart
that first morning
the tentative tug
this ode to their mothers urn
Four ages of flowering
retreating and learning
all that women know
and cannot speak about
but show in their soupy eyes
the tender surrender
to birthing to caring and living
to loving
providing and hoping
down to the gentle end

How splendid she appears anchored as it were to peace
far from her oceans and unloading dock
drenched in satin truffles silk petals and wondrous flounces something
given from the canvas from her resting heart
All the time of youth and adolescence fallen
like last years fruits their time now come and gone
she quietly resigns retires to afternoon reflection
to spend a twilight time as just her heart desires
The minuet of youth played out in nature's way
symphony of feeling memories appetites and dreams
played out in patterns independent of a mortal hand's control
that it could last forever everlasting life for more than just the soul
Luxuriating in this succulent repose
shipwrecked to the world of duty everybody knows
restful even to the mind's-eye canvas dreamed
working hard at being beautiful as Yeats once thought it seemed

To look and walk where the artists walked
the words of those with whom they talked
to kiss the thoughts that they have thought
what am I bid for their palette

To pay a hundred visits to the artist's shrine
each time learning more the dreaming more sublime
intense though it might seem to be the pleasure is a sleep
filled with vivid moments studded like the star-filled deep

Over the ultimate edge of the blade which with his craft he cut
glide on the tides of feeling there binding the screws to the nut
features and fabric draped on the sitter shrouded in private gaze
taken a message from out of the heart a statement from out of the age

High is the concept of gallery the artist's church of prayer
each moment that his canvas with his painted strokes hangs there
precious in a way like time itself with loved ones spent
preserving artist's treasures there without the risk of rent

Reliving history the ageless intellect at play
a refuge in his painting and in the artist's studio
those eyes looking down the gallery aisle
doing more from their Heaven than we do