If you were a stone picker, <br />that look of resigned surprise <br />at the pile of stones, defying gravity <br />to bubble up from the meadow around <br />your carefully scuffed boots, <br />would become you. <br />As it is that pail (water? milk?) , <br />that artfully propped basket <br />(the almost gingham cloth <br />draped studio-careless across it) , <br />that washed-out high buttoned <br />sexless dress, world-weary <br />incline of shoulder <br />are, no less than you, mere artifice. <br />Though, Polly (may I call you that?) <br />I may be too flinty with you. <br />Nursemaid, haymaker, <br />shepherdess, village girl - <br />you worked in fields, stood at gates <br />offered up head, shoulders, body <br />to the filleting and resolving gaze - <br />whatever the master ordered up, <br />you would become. <br />No less than the painter though, <br />I can fabricate a narrative of you; <br />it would speak of subversion. <br />How that whippet-tense body <br />would clamp, obdurate <br />at the raising of the brush. <br />How you fingered that <br />swaddle-tight, hessian apron- <br />almost empire line under your breasts - <br />as if it was the swirl of a ball gown <br />and you were celebrating <br />a full dance card. <br /> <br />You understood well <br />that woman/servant ju jitsu <br />which rendered flexible <br />the painter's hold on you.<br /><br />Patrick Lodge<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-stone-pickers-a-conversation-with-edward-clausen-s-the-stone-pickers-laing-art-gallery-newcastle/
