The Painted Brow


There are things I can maintain to have seen
With my eyes in those places I have been
But the pale face of Sir Walter Raleigh
I had never gazed on until lately
When I saw how he was looking at me
Was made with paint as well as it could be

Socialism was far from his mind one tells
By the way he dressed, not someone who yells
Loud declarations of unfounded hope
On behalf of others beyond his scope
Yet the affairs of the State did trouble
This artist who made this perfect double

Set against the background of the darkest blue
The northern faces have a pinky white hue
The knight's on our left and his lady's right
Eyes care little whether it's day or night
The look of thoughts soaked with the shadow
Of all the tears that fell on the pillow

Two figures together yet rendered apart
By the lengths that the brush strokes stop and start
Differ from the one face to the other
Reality is the strangest mirror
That holds together the light and the dark
Across the sliver of a chromatic mark

He is not grinning but the thick skin glows
She is smiling but the restraining shows
The surrender to a muted sadness
Of unrequited affections no less
Plainer than the shades on the painted brow
That which we find so intriguing somehow

Lucignano 23 6 2007