This poem was written as part of a workshop on Ekphrasis – writing poetry based on an image/artwork. My inspiration for this was the image above, Portrait of a Young Man by Andrea del Sarto, 1517. (from the National Gallery, London).

I am here to visit My Young Man
Well, not mine, exactly
Andrea del Sarto’s.
And I suppose he’s not that young
having been completed in 1517.
He does not look his age.

The colors that surround him are dark and rich.
I don’t know enough of 16th Century clothing
to know whether he is dressed
as Peer or Pauper.
But his garments are beautifully rendered,
the tiny pleats in the white shirt
Those voluminous and slightly wrinkled grey sleeves.
This attention to fabric is no surprise.
The artist’s father was a tailor.

Illumination seems to come from a small, high window
Light falls upon his face and left shoulder
It is a strong face, not a man to be trifled with
(It is occsionally rumored to be an image of the Artist himself.)

My Young Man is busy each time i visit.
He holds a book, but the pages appear blank.
He looks at me as if to say
“What do you want NOW?”
He freely shows his exaperation
Is that why the book is blank?
Because I keep interrupting him?
His frustrated gaze connects with me
in a way no other portrait has.

There is something contemporary about his resentment.
He is the Art Student in the museum, repeatedly asked
“What are you drawing?”
He is the Engrossed Reader
endlessly interruped to answer
“What are you reading? Is it any good?”

Strangely, it is this vexation with
his fellow man I respond to.
That makes him seem as rooted in the present day
as in the days he was painted.

Annoyance, it seems, is eternal.

This poem was written as part of a workshop on Ekphrasis – writing poetry based on an image/artwork. My inspiration for this was the image above (from the Australian War Memorial).

Oh, my boy
My dear, dear boy

This war sent you
so far away from me that
Your last letter,
Posted months ago,
arrived only today.

I stood there, shaking, while he searched
through his satchel, overflowing
with holiday greetings.

He presented your letter with a smile.

I thanked him.

I did not have the heart
to tell him he’d just
delivered a letter
from a ghost.

I received a letter
from your friend last month.
He told me how you’d been injured,
how you hadn’t survived

This Last Letter
written a few short days
before you died
is Extraordinary
in its very Ordinariness.

You asked me for socks.

How I know my boy
Your feet were always cold
I had started a pair of socks to send you
Only a few days before
I got the news.

My knitting needles were my weapons.
If I could get those socks on your feet,
I lied to myself,
Nothing could penetrate the shield
of a mother’s love.

I did not knit fast enough.

I could not knit fast enough.