The Lacemaker. (poem)

The painting that I have chosen is called “The Lacemaker”and it was painted between 1671 and 1672 obviously by Vermeer. It is a very beautiful painting and I have found a very nice poem related to it.

 

Her hands know what to do:
they dance, winding the threads
around their tiny maypoles, trying
each knot with surprising speed under
the deep calm of that broad, honest face,
suspended like a benevolent moon
over this delicate task.

She is not delicate. Body and bosom
are full-fleshed; her heavy ringlets will uncurl
by sundown. Wool and wood, metal hooks
and folds of yellow fabric are rich
with gravity and mass —- things
solidly of this world.

Yet in this light that pours
from some high window,
passing beneficence of a northern sun,
those solid things seem fragile:
the light will shift; she will lift her head
and stretch and sigh, the quiet
around her rippled like a pond´s surface,
and this graced moment gone.

Gathered on what we see,
filtered through lace, gleaming
on hair and polished wood, what we see
is always the light.