Williamsburg Museum Poem by Robert P Arthur

Shadows fall into the eyes
Of animals: motile underbranches
Of night, having breath.

Pensive umbrae flow into vines
Of bramble fruit -blackberry, raspberry,
Olallieberry -

Ingesting light, as
Mum as Pluto on a wintry night, broken
By intervening day.

The painting whispers dusk.

A colonial child in Roman toga
Ascends into a carriage rocked
By oscillating dark and the hoot

Of an owl in a distant tree.

The symbolism clears.

A black horse stands by a pasture stone.
The boy is dead. There is no heir.