Weighing light

Often the slightest gesture is most telling,
as when he reaches tenderly in passing
to pluck the yellow leaf from the dark fall

of her hair, or even the absence of all gesture:
the way she doesnt need to turn to know
who, in this gathering of friends, has touched her.

It was as if he dreamed some private garden.
Perhaps he woke from it, mid-reach, to find
his hand too near her hair in this crowded yard,

and maybe even now shes shuttering in
(shes even better than you or I at that)
a storm of worry and recrimination

did anyone notice? how could he do that here!
by seamlessly continuing to tell you
about her trip to see her favorite Vermeer

this morning in the Delft show at the Met:
So now they say she isnt weighing pearls
or gold or anythingits just the light

gleaming off empty scales. So much is hard
to know for sure. If I confronted her,
shed say it was just a leafwho could afford

to disagree? Could we? Now shes explaining
how the girl faces a mirror we cant see into
and how behind her hands a gloomy painting

of the Last Judgment: Over her head God
floats in a cloud, she says, like a thought balloon.
But you dont hear. Youre watching me. I nod.

Geoffrey Brock is the author Weighing Light and the translator of several books from the Italian language.

Topics: Poetry

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