You stood framed in the doorway of your Jamaica Plain house,
Leaning with casual elegance against the carved door frame of the house
your own Italian grandfather had built two generations earlier.

You waved and smiled in the strong January sun
And I remember every detail as I try to capture your strength and beauty,
Resilient as the hard woods your grandfather had chosen to build his family temple.

But wait, let me imagine myself an outsider,
out for a drink of Spring air in that January thaw.
Dodging melting snow, I turn a corner, my head down.
Then, looking up to get my bearings, I’m forced to stop:
I see a shaft of light, a figure, a doorframe.
Light and color vibrate, fusing figure and doorway.

I must take a longer look at the image.

Eager to grasp the beauty of the total woman
I’d explore the landscape of her hands, cheekbones, and eyes,
The patrician uplift of the head, centered in its own universe.

And yet, even were I a stranger, I would have noticed that
beneath the beauty of those wide deep eyes,
and the perfect new-born hair capping the shapely head
that here there was something amiss.

Something had given that elegant figure pause,
Forcing the eyes more inward than natural in one who so obviously ruled her world.

If my imagination and being combined, I would draw this passerby aside
and describe the strength behind the beauty,
 The sharp wit beneath the cap of hair,
  The expressive hands that color landscapes to take the breath,
   The generous nature leading others to create.

I would be more personal and anecdotal, describing for the stranger
the richness of her eyes as she sat facing an eager sun in my office one spring afternoon:  I had remarked, “Your eyes are remarkable—What color are they? Blue? Brown?
 Green? Give me a painter’s description!”
  “All of the above!” she had laughed. “They’re nothing special.”
But I still can’t describe the kaleidoscope of color in those cat-marble eyes, the center of her creative world.

And yet, let me reconsider my offer:

You know, I don’t think I would mention anything to a casual observer that January day,
Forget the words.
Let image and color speak for themselves.
Sometimes a glancing image is a completed canvas.