Self-Portrait

                                                                        Artist in his Studio by Rembrandt


In the light, your face is half moon
Etched on canvas, unfurling
Shadows of restless sea, I see

Jagged lines, brittle as sand dunes
Browning hues, lush as autumn's swirling  
In the light, your face is half moon

Silver-lidded, a mirage of June's perfect skies 
But August's unflinchingly death stares
Bestow shadows of restless sea, I see

Your singular passion, your wounds
Glint of secret core, raw as unrefined salt
No light nor half moon can dim, a face

Inked in velvet-red strokes, a darkening to swoon
A master boldly unrepentant as eagle swooping its prey
There are shadows,  restless as sea, I see  

Deep despair from love's lost
Grieving hands from burying a child
In the light, your face is half moon

Celebrated by many, your signature is known
But you breathe on cliff's edge, a yearning 
to live amidst shadows, restless as the sea, I 

Look for your bones under church's tombstone
Marked for men, broken and poor     
In the dying light, your face pivots a full moon
throwing shadows to restless sea, I see.....         me


Posted for Imaginary Garden with Real Toads - Ekphrasis - Hosted by Bjorn Rudberg
and Poets United - This started as a villanelle but I added more lines & didn't follow the rhyming scheme.    Thanks for your visits ~