—Las Meninas, 1656

Archaic, monumental – why look 
at this canvas Diego Velasquez court painter and subject 
has painted himself into, wherein he has just stepped back, 
a palette of wet colors in hand as now he studies us, 
as though we might yet be part of his subject 
on that canvas twice his height, held taut 
by two stretchers in its frame. 

We see what he's not painting. 
He stands in a room, airy and high, figures to his left 
resplendent in the lace and frills of the Spanish court.
Royal and God-anointed is the center front girl,
her ivory gown best lit by the window right, her days 
no spontaneity, no wish unmet, and no one could know 
how young she would die. Commentators will tell you 
more of who is who and what what, but really it's too tall, 
too wide to see all at once. You have to face it, 
let haste go slack – you have to choose how to look: 
what's not there, what is, this person or that, 
the way an intricate ribbon in bows attaches a sleeve, 
a conversation you’ll never hear, a sated dog, 
farther back, a door, a stair, someone coming, going, 
ever turned to see who you are. 

Nine feet across and ten feet tall,
a painting like this must have asked days, months
of patience, mixed colors, attention to space, shadow, 
object, detail, each brush stroke a decision 
to make, unmake… Better, Velasquez thinks.
Palette set down, soon he will need to eat.  
He rolls his shoulders, goes outside, looks up: 
lead white, bone black, red ochre, azurite blue. 
                        

“A very rainy morning.” 
“Very rainy all the morning.” 
“A very rainy, or rather showery and gusty morning.” 
“A rainy day.” 
                Dorothy Wordsworth, Dove Cottage, Grasmere, October, 1800

            A complicated place, the past—
it tasks us: be other, and better. Design by sun, 
            by leaf and feather, morel, chanterelle, and bee, 
and finback, right, gray, bottlenose, and sperm.
            Make habit not for profit’s catastrophe 
but story ongoing, as now this gray iambic rain 
            reminds me of Grasmere, its little green square
sodden, St Oswald's yews and churchyard sodden, 
            the River Rothay's risen sound hurrying past 
the Wordsworth graves – William's and Sarah's, 
            sister Dorothy, daughter Dora, 
and Thomas, age 6, Catherine, ever not yet quite 4. 
            And though it's not exactly the bliss of solitude, 
nor emotion in tranquility recollected, 
            you can in words and fact go there, 
walk that rocky track to Rydal under rain, 
            trees shedding, flat water pewter, brief silver, 
the stone you awkward tread a channel braided
            loud with what gathers and waterfalls – 
such trail the Wordsworths and Coleridge knew – 
            waxed canvas coats, who knows what sewn shoes.  
On rock not far distant they carved initials 
            formal as cut lead, and sat nearby in sun, 
and tried, each and together, to listen, 
            intuit, look and think and say 
what time had brought them – a moment, this, 
            the next, how earth reveals itself in cloud, 
rain, sun, chill, warm; in leaf shape, oak poise, 
            heathered, brackened, slaty ground, 
and fruit seeds in a green linnet gut –
            such admirations found, born into,
their conversation not science merely, 
            nor sympathy, nor philosophy nor health, 
but all of these, beauty—until at last they sat quieted.  
            Clouds blew in. Leaving apple cores for birds, 
they started back, not as they had come, 
            failing, minutes later, to out-walk the rain
then, which is not and is this rain and ours.
            So the past that tasks us may love us yet.
                        

—Virginia Woolf, A Writer’s Diary, Sept. 30, 1926 

With Mrs. Dalloway 
we walked London streets and parks, remarked 
on flowers, and heard the chiming hours sound,
and found the blue-marked Stephens house.
And from the hill of Talland House, St. Ives,
we saw her same view down – a girl at the window 
that day more interested in sky than bay. 

We saw the River Ouse curve swift and deep—
we crossed it on a swing bridge at the Southease stop, 
and through hay fields walked the slender road up
past the tiny church unlocked, and so the path 
to Rodmell, food at the one pub there, 
and then to the house, the room Virginia and Leonard 
and so many others sat at supper, 
low beams, tile floor, Vanessa's paintings (a harbor, 
a portrait) on the walls. 

Yes, we found the outdoor loo, and
having entered the room with her bed amid all its books, 
from that green door we followed bricks
to zinnias, red asters, mums—September's garden 
profusion overgrown, the orchard, clipped lawn 
for bowls, the lodge she wrote in, cliffs in the distance 
white as she knew. By the dew pond with lilies, 
quick colors, a gentle breeze: we sat on a bench. 
And last resolved
to better get thought and feeling right, 
we walked the stubble fields back.