Poet’s Corner – Vermeer’s Quiet Women

By Helen Bournas-Ney

Hoarders of light, 
they wait . . . until the portals
of their paintings might somehow – 
open, and they slip seamlessly, into
a pure refulgence 

Composed, in the interiors
of Delft, though not yet the hour,
almost by stealth,
seizing their moment of
undomesticated power:

the cloths, the tapestries,
so prominent, so rich, but yet
the light’s on me –
they seem to say; I am
illuminated.

In The Little Street, a woman
sits, sewing, in an open doorway;
and there, Young Woman
with a Water Pitcher standing
by an open window, with a map
behind . . . here, A Maid Asleep –
what is it she is dreaming?

(I can almost hear the rustling of their
private lives, a photographic music . . . )

They live inside, not leaping yet
out of themselves, they churn
(within themselves), like milk,
dreaming of butter.

Top photo: Bigstock