The Bourgeois Troubadour by Deborah Guzzi

Girl Interrupted at Her Music, by Jan Vermeer, 1661.

The Bourgeois Troubadour
 
The western sun lends what warmth is left
in the winter day to my parchments and plaster
walls. Layers upon layers of clothes garb me,
as does the snow outside the vaulted leaded
glass. All held in place by light and shadow.
 
ink splotches
coat my fingertips:
the painting’s eyes follow
 
The arch, the line, the staff, the cleft all
borrowed scrolled or hidden in the folds, my
consciousness rests. Restrained, retrained, prodded
on by familial needs, only the flight of music
bring me release.
 
beneath your
eye and hand, I sigh:
a thrush sings unseen

transcendence an illusion, of optics, of light.

Deborah Guzzi

This poem was written for the 20 Poem Challenge.

Deborah Guzzi's poetry appears in Magazines: Existere - Journal of Arts and Literature in Canada, Tincture in Australia, Cha: Asian Literary Review, Hong Kong, China, Eunoia in Singapore, Latchkey Tales in New Zealand, Vine Leaves Literary Journal in Greece, mgv2>publishing in France, RedLeaf Poetry, India and Travel by the Book, Ribbons: Tanka Society of America Journal, Sounding Review, Kyso Flash, The Aurorean, Crack the Spine Literary Magazine, Liquid Imagination, Poetry Quarterly, Page & Spine, Ekphrastic: Writing and Art on Art and Writing and others in the USA. Her new book The Hurricane is available now through Prolific Press.