Description Painted Glass
Five centuries have blotched a patina
Of algae across their faces. The eyes,
Though blemished, join mother, child
In a gaze that seems eternal.
Watch now: a modernist painter
Working in wax repel ? it dries,
Mottled as alga; a coloured mould
Spreads like something elemental,
His pigments pure as glazes
And figures still arranged
Like puppets: Joseph, polite
Behind his pillar ? now crayoning
The ox, the ass, with hieratic gazes.
They crane their necks, unchanged
By centuries: the palette
Still as primary, her cradling
Quite as gentle.
Poem by Giles Watson, 2011.
