Girl Reading a Letter, by Andrew Howdle

Girl Reading a Letter by the Open Window, by Johannes Vermeer (Netherlands) 1657-9.

 
Girl Reading a Letter

A trustworthy table
Bearing a Turkish rug;
A rug crumpled under
An esteemed Chinese bowl;
A blue-and-white bowl which
Discharges Dutch produce;
Ripe apples and peaches,
Maybe an orchard quince:
 
All of this is shown by
An open drape, one formed
From blue-azurite with
Lead-tin yellow and green,
Beyond which a cultured
Pomona reads pictures
In words, not her face seen
In an open window.
 
The viewer, who arrives
To witness this scene, must
Do so from directly
Behind the table where
There is little leg room.
Roving eyes must move in
A fixed head. The still-life
Is a calm diversion.
 
Through bright dots of raised paint--
Jots of white that rim fruits
With day’s shine, and flecks, dabs,
Specks of stain that catch clean
Rays as they fall on rind--
A hand with a firm touch
Makes its true mark and gives
All due praise to life’s light.
 
Mind’s pointillé centres
A detailed spectacle
Of urbane proportions
That brings the long branches
Of global trade into
The clear interior
Life of a woman whose
Coined thoughts have properties.
 
Here is an intellect
Reading, after what dark
Emotion uplifted
The rug, to shape a hill
That from its motion set
A landslide thundering,
Until it subsided
Into a changed still-life.
 
There is no need to stare
With x-ray sight into
Painted plaster to find
The out-dated Cupid
That Vermeer rescinded.
Everything exists
In Psyche, in the room’s
Intense modernity.
 
This is a painting for
Anyone who has felt
How light from a letter
Might blossom and extend
A close embrace; how words
Which have travelled, as far
As the journeying Word,
Can make a hand steadfast.
 
Like the half-cut peach, in
The bowl’s shadow, which hints
At speech stirring within
The Virgin’s kept silence,
A letter brings a voice
That speaks out, in private,
And offers the soul its
Sweet annunciation.

Andrew Howdle

Andrew Howdle is a retired teacher and drama consultant living and writing in Leeds, United Kingdom. He has published work in Singapore Unbound, was the winner of their 2018 poetry competition, and in Impossible Archetype. His latest poetry has been included in Lovejets (2019), edited by Raymond Luczak, tributes to Walt Whitman. Currently, he spends his time drawing the male human figure, writing poetry and criticism, and attempting to play Chopin.