Chateau

Painting by Titian


CHATEAU


Behind the tapestries must be windows
since there’s a draft, but the Owner
doesn’t want you looking out,
he doesn’t want that kind of light.
Look instead at what the weaving shows:
Diana at her bath, her hoyden nymphs
splash about her. In a clump of willow trees
far off a little face appears: Actaeon
it must be, eternal beholder, caught already
in the trap of the visible. Fatal.
The whole scene stretched across the wall
narrows for you into that pale,
unsuccessfully hidden face: your own.


Robert Kelly

Posted over on Charlotte Mandell

from MAY DAY: Poems 2003-2005