I

Against the window, against desire, against
expectation, which is not long, she leans

away from her light source, and her eyes
stay just in shadow as she seems to smile

Or say hello, before she starts singing
her song which binds unguarded love to you:

against the gold and white fire of her dress,
against a covered, curtain-hidden sun,

she plays it throughout everlastingness,
glowing, a pearl, offset against the day.

II

Against her covered, curtain-hidden sun.
by being just and all she knows she is,

she plays her being’s pattern, as she glows
against the day, which settles in her core

and grows there, generous, clear centred, sure,
as if she were some sturdy, dew-pearled rose

gathering light towards her. It collects
within her forehead, pools beneath her skin

And radiates towards us, quiet, strong,
delicate, but untouchable, as her song.

III

This music binds unguarded love to you,
her fingers may say to her instrument’s strings

and her melody call to the shadows and glooma
nd whoever listens in the next room

at the end of her gaze, we cannot see.
Hello. Hello. Are you there? Can you hear?

And whether she aims to impress or attract
or simply to please, or just doesn't care,

it’s subtle, this mooted joy she folds
in her envelope of luminous air.

IV

She is a pearl, offset against the day,
against the twin perfection she knows she is

and the other perfection she leans towards
which is the space gathering between us

from the pools of her densely pupilled eyes
and the few rich, perfect, ornate things

in the room where, smiling, she sits and sings
the silence which frets our history’s

lacunae in unheard of, guessed at bars,
and lights against the space she occupies.

V

Delicate, but untouchable as her song,
in playing, she tunes an orchestrated light

which is her being’s pattern, and no more
than what she is, or has awareness of.

Smiling, she plays as if her song were willed

By a more intelligent, kinder love

Protecting and surrounding her young face

Than any we have understanding of,

as if the day itself had overspilled
itself through her to make those fingers skilled.

VI

In her envelope of luminous air,
joy may be folded, and some other things:

pearls round her neck, but no bracelets or rings,
whose absence may mean, imply or suggest

an innocence: in her ringleted hair,
ermine and silk, she is wearing her best,

As she plays on, quiet, aware-unaware

And ready to move yet still seem at rest,

whether she's smiling, or blushing, or sings
and plays for herself, and just doesn’t care.

VII

She lights against the space she occupies,
familiar in its elegance and grace,

and yet, in youthful eagerness, her face
leans still against more space, she may not know

outside this screened, framed room she’s captured in
against the daylight, closeted for good

in the too pure perfection of a pearl,
against desire, that radiates through her skin:

now, now, she plays, for she is young, a girl
just turning from us into womanhood.

VIII

The day in her, to make her fingers skilled
(as though she were the space she occupies)

to reach across the broken, varnished years
in silent music no-one really hears

towards us in another century,
has made her human: no pure pearl or bloom

could possess such composure. Those deep eyes
are burdened with too fine, alert intelligence

and too prepared, in willing mute obedience
to wait forever in her drawing room.

IX

If she plays for herself, and just doesn't care
whose being she plucks from her instrument’s strings

(woman, girl, woman, in yellow and white),
but smiles at an audience of none, in the wings,

no secret admirer, protected from sight,
no parent or guardian to applaud her, or call,

then it’s her own selfhood she sifts as she sings
and her own self-becoming wavering there

hidden against the chiaroscuro half-light
as in an unseen mirror on a wall.

X

Just turning from us into womanhood
against the day, against parental praise,

she gives to shadows one half of her face
and a warm human longing fills her gaze

yet quietens it, for it is still uncertain.
so, balanced between action and repose,

she looks away. What there she sees or knows
offstage, in her own private, secret place,

waits there, without embodiment or history
and is not for the telling. It’s her mystery.

XI

To wait for ever in her drawing room
could be her destiny, always: poised steady

as a dart to pierce the adulthood
she leans against, but never will command

more than the brush held in her maker’s hand

who formed her, against day, against desire

and against his day’s possessions. Against

her bridal day, no girl could seem so ready

as she, in certain hope, so qualified

by all but nature, for her womanhood.

XII

As if glimpsed in a mirror on a wall
she’s posed, as ornamental as the tree

gilt-framed behind her: nature trapped inside
artifice, inside artifice, where she,

pearled tracery on rich parental pride,
sits screened in flattened space, to play on three

dimensions, self-contained, in perfect liberty:
but the fourth, our common history, we share

with her across the barricaded years
within whose space alone may she be freed.

XIII

What is not for the telling, but her mystery,
we cannot know: she may play for her groom,

or entertain a friend, or family guest,
who, deep in the interior of her room,

off in the wings, unfettered by her frame,
knows her full repertoire we cannot hear.

we only see her hopeful gaze arrest
on absent presence, distant and yet near,

and whoever may be listening, manifest
space as the sound her silent song must claim.

XIV

From all in nature must her womanhood
remain exempt, unless you hear her. This

is still and always all art ever meant,
and only you have natural power to call

her being from its painted artifice
created by the man who patterned all

he knew in her, of love's integument
against the day. You are the instrument

she plays on, until doomsday: against you
the gloom she gazes, still and always, through.

XV

Within whose space, alone, may she be free
if not in yours? Come, hear her subtle playing

unlock the solid shutters of the years
and open them, light-wrought, in filigree:

playing her being’s pattern, she plays true.
She is the song she plays, and what it's saying

(This music wings unguarded love to you),
calls you, who are her song’s recipient,

yourself, to pattern love, her music's key,
and join her in the gift of this, her moment.

XVI

Your space: the single sound her song may claim
to open, is the gift a father knew

seeing his natural daughter come of age.
this child of his will meet her adulthood

by playing her being’s pattern quietly through
the centuries, until she reaches you.

You are her hope, her natural heritage.
You are the absent audience in her wings.

Your entrance is the cue a parent would
most desire for her. It is for you she sings.

XVII

The gloom she gazes still and always through
clears, as you listen. This, her painter knew:

unless you hear her music, and impress
the sound it makes upon your inner ear,

she will not play at all but wait forever.
She gives herself. Her gift is its own giver

and its envelope of luminous air
bears your mark on it. You are its address.

Whoever you may be, although unknown,
her music plays to all of you alone.

XVIII

Come, join her in the gift of this, her moment,
becoming her own secret audience

as if you were the listener in the wings
for whom her music’s made, performed and meant,

and, though this be impossible, confess
how well you hear and understand these songs

she plays to you through everlastingness
on soundless subtle chords no aural sense

could ever pluck, except against the heart,
against the day, against desire, in art.