LINES IN THE PORTRAIT

 

 

The lines on a face

Weathered by time or work

Sometimes make it

More engaging to draw

Each line following

The embedded frown

The troubled gaze

The staring into emptiness.

Following a trail of the common

Deeply engrained

Making unique constellations

Of biography, history, dream and drawing.

Are you there in this drawing, mother?

Are you there in those lines

Caught at a strange moment

Between them?

 

Maybe the pencil has missed you

And gone on a trip of pleasure

By itself

Cross- hatchings, contours, play of light and line

Of full darkness and empty light

Hair, skin, wrinkles, caring

Brows, jawline, neck, adam’s apple

Politics, indifference

The short or long nose

Predominant or subdued bones

Mouth, mustache, mole, movement

Hate, cunning, innocence, passion, love

The drooping or staunchly held shoulders

Is that you, brother?

 

The eyes, the eyes, the eyes

Your eyes picked up by mine

In lines concurring

Reflected light

The act of looking in

Meeting looking out

At a junction of many eyes

Is that you, my love? 

 

Drudgery, pain, pantomime

Passion, description, excess

Sometimes you meet me there

Between the lines

In that space or void entrapped

Between us, between the lines

Running on, or stopping abruptly

You,  me and another

Lines thick or fine

Lines working or lazy

Accidental, deliberate, decorative, minimal

Straight, curving, zigzagging

Excessive, baroque-

So it is for all of us

The life of a shadow

In the precincts of light.