Christ has been done to death <br />in the cold reaches of northern Europe <br />a thousand thousand times. <br /> Suddenly bread <br />and cheese appear on a plate <br />beside a gleaming pewter beaker of beer. <br /> <br />Now tell me that the Holy Ghost <br />does not reside in the play of light <br />on cutlery! <br /> <br />A Woman makes lace, <br />with a moist-eyed spaniel lying <br />at her small shapely feet. <br />Even the maid with the chamber pot <br />is here; the naughty, red-cheeked girl. . . . <br /> <br />And the merchant's wife, still <br />in her yellow dressing gown <br />at noon, dips her quill into India ink <br />with an air of cautious pleasure.<br /><br />Jane Kenyon<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/dutch-interiors/
