A Beauty In Pearl Earrings Poem by Sumit Ganguly

I found her in Maritshuis Museum, Hague,
intently watching my eyes,
if at all she is overlooked.
Perhaps all visitors had the same feeling.

My eyes were roaming constantly
over earrings, face and eyes,
when the beauty of earrings outshone her eyes,
I was immobilized.

'I'm a nymph of Heaven,
came to Keukenhof garden to meet my sister, a river nymph
your artist Johannes Vermeer got lost in the earrings.
The big pearls are specialty of Heaven.

I watched him painting my face with pearl.
The face was so lively, I fell in love with him.
But celestial beings and humans are oil and water,
so, my alter ego lives with him, unnamed.'

My trance is gone, I look again at her.
The evergreen beauty silently carries a name,
not of her own,
but of her godly creator*

*Works of an artist, e.g. painter, musician, writer emanate from heavenly inspiration- nymph, who stays with her lover to propagate the artist's work and name. The concept of nymph, on the other hand is the brain child of an artist.


4th Oct.2016