A Great Darkness, by Laura Ann Reed

The Old Violin, William Michael Harnett (USA) 1887

A Great Darkness
 
The painting hung on the wall of the farmhouse, then in the small apartment after the sale of the orange grove. After my grandfather’s pack-a-day habit so enraged his heart that its blood betrayed its chambers. What did he make of this canvas, the beam of light falling through an unseen window onto a page of sheet music, a blue envelope, a newspaper clipping and an old violin? The instrument gives the sense of inviting the hand to reach in and tuck it under one’s chin.  It appears to be waiting, impatient. If what Rilke said was true, that we throw a great darkness over everything we see, was the painting nothing more for him than an unmendable wound— recalling the black leather case left behind on the train station bench when he fled Odessa?  Or did it remind him that he could take up playing again, could inhabit a loss that had doors?

Laura Ann Reed

Laura Ann Reed is the author of the chapbook Homage to Kafka (Poetry Box, 2025). Her work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and has appeared or is forthcoming in numerous journals, as well as in nine anthologies including Poetry of Presence II (Grayson Books, 2023) and The Wonder of Small Things (Storey Publishing 2023).  Reed holds master’s degrees in clinical psychology and performing arts. https://lauraannreed.net/