Portrait of an unknown man

   clasping a hand from a cloud  *  Nicholas Hilliard (1588)       

                                                       
                                                                                 Attici amoris ergo 

 

  A curly headed man with russet beard
  and swishly banded feathered fine-brimmed hat
  clasps a heaven-hid woman’s hand descending
  out of a sleeve of cloud. Prevailing space

  means we can’t see her body, arm or face.

  Hold on. Hold on to love descending as
  a hand from nowhere. Here comes poetry.
  Out of her spongy light-flecked cloud she’ll tender
  far finer guidance than a mother will
  and more than all your hope and longing fill.

 
 New Poem No. 2 * for Kevin Nolan
 
posted 9 September 2006