Light and Colour Like Clutching the Shadow of an Old Lover, by Joy Dubé

The Milkmaid, by Johannes Vermeer (Netherlands) c. 1660

Light and Colour Like Clutching the Shadow of an Old Lover

The way light softens the pale gray table cloth.  Like that time when we were lovers.  The sparkle of white grains on bread.  The girl’s face.  The white-washed wall where there is no mappa mundi, no adornment.  The wicker basket and metal container, suspended, breathless.  Clothing hastily piled on the floor.  Yellows, blues, browns, strong and earthy like skins touching.  Progression of light along bare wood.  The folds of the girl’s skirt, her sleeves bunched up to her elbows.  No gesture of pretense.  The slow sliding together of our hands and legs.  There is no resistance.  The earthenware milk jug.  Its hardness suppled and softened by invisible brushwork.  Milk trickles into a bowl, the cool liquid lapping our pink tongues.  Like our hunger for each other.  The window’s thick glass squares emanate a subdued radiance.  We melt into texture and contrast, clutching each other’s shadow.  A syncopated rhythm of here and now.  That thin ecstatic white line.  It unspools itself along the back of the milkmaid’s silhouette.  A liminal thread between the what and the how of longing.

Joy Dubé

"I am Joy Dubé, living on Vancouver Island, B.C., Canada.  I write poetry to explore meaning and to connect more deeply with people and places around me.  I love words and many times I find I do not know the meanings of words until I juxtapose them with other words in a creative way.  I try to give voice to a unique way of looking and feeling. Using art as a visual prompt is a challenge I enjoy."