She who weighs pearls, who plays lutes
By the crimson rug on a table,
By the chair with lions reared on its back
Standing, posed, facing the full fall of light
There, over her left shoulder,
Or interrupted at music or clasping a book
In a yellow jacket bordered by ermine,
Or in a blue robe, leaves far voluted the color of blue
In her hair,
In her hand the slender gold trumpet,
By a sloping dish, a peach divided in half,
By the spinet marbled in brown, gray, and black,
Gray and gold the checkerwork of the floor,
Stilled standing there in a mesh
Of the movement of light on light
As fixed it would genuflect
On the studs of the chair,
On a pearl in the ear,
Silks on the wall, maps, ewers, and globes
And waiting stilled there
Lifting up to the eyes of the server
Mouth bemused, a sweetness resting there
As if from some inward air
Bliss like a tempering messenger ….
And the blue velvet chair, the spinet or virginals,
The letter, a wineglass that covers the mouth,
The viola upon its back, and a lute
Or the page of music by the gilt frame-
Allusions and scriptless emblems
Like the fish or the peacock or vine,
Signs for the ungiven thing
She converses with on that light gathering in.
And whoever she is standing there
About to play music or hear
From that server who bears foretellingly
Measures into a chamber
The clairvoyance of lemon made northern by amber,
A sense of some brimming raised in a cup,
Of what that is not quite arcane
Is not as yet profane
As if deep back in the interior
Enclosed by the coffered rim
Gildings from the illuminations,
Figures in gold-leaf flame
Returned through translucence again
Atomies of the passion,
A vial of roses and blood.
Like a clarity of being become
A concordance, an equation, this light
With the soul transformed in its chamber.
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