The Last Discipline

In the evening
after a whole day at the easel
my mother would put down her brush,
pour turpentine into a glass jar,
and walk to the table.

Then she took a mirror,
hand-sized, enameled in green,
and turned her back to the canvas.
And stood there.
And looked in it.

It was dusk.
The sheets were ghostly.
The canvas was almost not there.
In the end all I could see was her hand
closed around the handle.

All I can see now
is her hand, her head.
Her back is turned to what she made.
The mirror shows her
whit is over her shoulder:
a room in winter.
A window with fog outside it.
A painting she sees in not finished.
A child. Her face round with impatience,
who will return,

who has returned,
who only knows no that she has seen the rare and necessary -
usually unobservable-
last discipline.


From THE LOST LAND (W.W. Norton & Company, 1998)