Yumpu_Catalogue_Peacemaking

all but unnoticed on the oilcloth there—where three
gold coins, & a silver one,
have casually been placed. The woman focuses
on the equilibrium of
the scales, which contain nothing except sun-glint . . . Now
the shadow-hand—the almost
subliminal shadow caressing the left side of her linen
bonnet—lends support
to her head, as she leans gently back against the hand.
Behind her, on the wall,
the Bosch-like spirits writhe in faceless terror. Christ,
in his golden nimbus, floats
above their heads. But it barely registers—the Judgment
scene, the reckoning—
as relevant, in light of her, her certitude
suspended in the air
from thumb & index finger . . . It won’t come again—
this equipoise between
the figure & the room. Vermeer is thirty-two—
the death-carts creaking through
the black smoke of North Europe. Twenty-four thousand dead
in Amsterdam this year.
In June, the war with England will resume. So it
won’t come again, I’m thinking,
not with such full-bodied ease. But for the moment,
here she stands. Is realized.
Michael White