Pillow of Wood

The distance between dawn
and sunrise is short, enough for the sheer light
to deceive. Shapes appear
on the beach, construed
from what is there
and what her mind perceives.

Stone cliffs
become the buttressed walls
of an abbey. The girl imagining this
is smooth-shouldered, showing off
the bronzed hair and skin
of a Ralph Lauren look. Her forehead
sports a fillet strung with beads
of sea glass, jewelry
left by Venus in the blue
saltwater tides two or three
civilizations ago. The influence
of love has been -- as these goddess stones
polished, smoothly deceptive.

She lingers in a lush affair, lost
retreating to the shoreline and memory
for relics. As a child, she grew
in the shadow of nuns gliding
along olive trees, stained glass
and plates gleaming white
on an oak surface. At supper,
they whispered how St. Teresa
ate stale bread soaked
in sour milk and slept on a pillow
wrought of timber
like the long table before them.
Silence ensued, the scent of lamp oil
and ocean musk prevailed,
mingling in the twilight.

Ahead, her eyes spot old planking
discarded from the fallen pier.
Splintered and strewn with a chaplet
of seaweed, she thinks
some of it might suffice
for a cushion, a hatch door
to shut out dreams of him -- winged
with schooner sails, unbuttoned
shirt sleeves and the updraft
of a saviour's smile.---saturated
with sun, salt and wine.
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Note -- This beautiful painting called, " Un regard suffit " or " A Glance Is Enough" is a creaton of French artist, Marie-France Riviere. More of her evocative work can be seen here at her online gallery, www.griviere.com/expo2000.