The hollows over your eyes

May 20, 1982

are arcs of mauve chiseled shadow in smooth stone pressed by the thumb of Michelangelo shaping the gaze of Mary holding Jesus taken down from the cross: La Pieta while dawn peered at the door a sway of wind crisscrossing the poplar leaves. are scythes in Czechoslovakia hung on a dark barn wall black earth blade-clinging and straw wisps where a young farmer leans his brow against his arm listening to the sigh of autumn rain. are grapes heavy with liquid bowing into the face of the grass massed in a flame of solace painted by Monet in the hay fields of Giverny in his rainbow-gathered gardens etched in winter frost.