A Poem for One of My Models

I wrote this poem today, after starting on a painting of this model last night.


To My Model

This deathly space your body penetrates,
This void between the markers' marbled weights.
Sorrow, grief, and tears on tender cheek bones,
Soften faces of impassive grave stones.

Your limbs enact the passions of my heart,
Your face shows the intentions of my art.
You toss your hair about you, fling it free,
Like chains of some medieval weaponry.

And on the stone of one who, too young, met his fate,
Commemorate death's dance a century too late
With stately kinematic energy,
Then fall to ground from spritely apogee.

And now the shadows, lengthening apace,
Remind us of the transience of this grace.
I whisper benediction on my knees,
And watch you standing taut against the breeze.