Until She Meets A Prince Poem by gershon hepner

Inhaling fumes of ambergris,
a woman in white robes appears
upon the Bridge of Sighs to see
young girls accosting gondoliers.
She wishes she could also talk
to them, and demonstrate that she
is lovely too, but has to walk
away, because she is not free
to follow such an impulse, since
she knows her virtue has to be
preserved until she meets a prince.

Inspired by Ken Johnson’s description of two small views of Venice by Whistler in an exhibition of art at the Sterling and Francine Clark Institute in Williamstown (“Like Breath on Glass: Whistler, Inness, and the Art of Painting Softly, ” NYT, June 21,2008) :
Sargent’s two small views of Venice — indoors and outdoors — and his exotic, Orientalist painting of a woman in white robes in a white temple inhaling fumes of burning ambergris exhibit a painterly virtuosity that the soft painters avoided. Homer’s late paintings of roiling ocean waters have a churning, erotic energy that would have given those prim masters of self-effacing hypersensitivity nightmares.

6/21/08