Old Woman, Still Life

For what strange orchestra brings an old woman alone
Wandering her last solo year in charming Italy,
A lost village, cobble stone bones
And a man.

This is not as she had planned.

Purse tight to cracking hip
Sitting still to setting casts of evening
Light to the west of her days.
For a near hour.
Feeling naked, almost.
Scaling her up and down. Sharp. Up and down.
No age of permission giving her the right,
She scorned, to wonder this.
She knew what she looked like.
Why such matters took her to him
To see, how he looked at her.
She was bared-souled and couldn't for one more chromatic second stay.

"Il finito." Rolled down from his tongue
Just as his dark eyes lifted wispy black hair, his stubble jaw,
Conducting her to stand.
Flapping open her purse, then wallet, then forty euros trembling
For what? She could not behold even the question.
Temptation caught her, now, temptation called her
Fear, to look away, walk away, without a sight of memory of
The moment before.
Before she could turn,
He turned, her, around.

Her. A canvas.
Blankness covered in face of someone who, when she looked,
She recognized, in surrender.
She was not old. She was not young.
It was just her.
A timeless piece.
Her whole life, blushed in paint.
No wrinkle of insecurity,
Clef of pain,
Scowl of years,
Hollowness of impermanence.

Not a note of discord,
No mark of regret.

She knew this woman's eyes.
She knew this woman's expression.
Contours of ordinary beauty
Every octave of humanly life
Cast imperfect and forgiving,
Light from the east.

She gave him forty euros.
She gave him a "Grazie millie."
He gave her, her.
Face upon canvas, beautiful.

She walked into the evening,
Over cobble stone bones
Staring down into her eyes and thinking
Of her years, forgotten pieces
Below aged music.

He painted her, smiling, when
She hadn't smiled.

He painted her flowing mane black, when,
Her hair was cut gray.

He painted her eyes -
Alive.
Jubilant and singing.

He saw her life beneath,
A portrait of her whole color.
Her living art, her rich palette -
Beautiful enough to hang on a wall.
Or to live inside. And love.

"Grazie millie," she said again,
This time - to the paint sounds,
To the harsh brush strokes struck apart
Then swept finely together, strings of violins,
Acryllic tones without name, to
The irreplaceable mixture of herself in stillness.

It was not what he had seen.
It was belief of herself, he believed, left
Unseen.

Light of her days glimmering,
Quiet verbrato,
A finale setting west, and falling.
She placed her starry portrait inside
A plain night street bin.
She needed it no longer. She had memorized every note.

He had painted her a symphony
To tell a tale
Of an old woman who became
Her own portrait.
Who went Italy and returned
A painter.

Through moon night chords,
Cobble stone streets, a found village.
And a woman, softly moving in her portrait life,
Painting herself towards home.