To Edwaert Collier Regarding Vanitas Still Life, by Portly Bard

Vanitas Still Life, by Edwaert Collier (Netherlands) 1662

To Edwaert Collier Regarding Vanitas Still Life

Your somber work so cloaks our fate
in dote on darkness we await...
...where candlestick you've overturned
held flame of hope so long that burned...

...and silence wafts as music made
from instruments no longer played...
...and nib with ink forever dried
has left unfinished work implied...

...and books in which we've bound our dread
are turned to ground we fear to tread...
...and yet your globe shows daring's yen
as map to be redrawn again...

...when treasures pass with blood that flows
to future faith, in darkness, grows.

Portly Bard

Portly Bard: Old man.  Ekphrastic fan.

Prefers to craft with sole intent
of verse becoming complement...
...and by such homage being lent...
ideally also compliment.