The Artist's Studio, by Shane Leavy

The Artist's Studio: Lady Hazel Lavery with her Daughter Alice and Stepdaughter Eileen, by John Lavery (Ireland) 1910-1913

The Artist's Studio: Lady Hazel Lavery with her Daughter Alice and Stepdaughter Eileen  

The first two fourths are folded browns and blacks,
as darkness draws in downward strokes
then gowns and gauzy garments glow, alight
with sideways streams of sunshine, brightly
lighting Lady Lavery in violet
collapsing cloth, that casts, to right
soft shadows and ensuing browns.

White wakes on waxy knee of child
gazing gravely, greyed with shadow
from mute, milk-white mother Hazel,
then, hunched, a hound, holding the eye
of the plump painter, posing in a mirror,
and the Moroccan maid moving with fruit, 
bright and bulbous balls of grape.

One day in Dublin, depressed in rainstorm - 
swirling sordid on streets of grit -
weary and wet, weak in body,
and tight with tension from terse words,
I sought silence, the solace of beauty
and saw Lavery alight, lush with violet,
the brilliant blues, and bronzes, and there
between handsome Hazel and the hound, the girl,
swaddled in shade, staring at me across the century.

Shane Leavy

Shane Leavy writes from the rural west of Ireland. He has been published in Popshot, Claim and Poems from the Lockdown.