Jessie Boswell: Three Windows (1924)

Three Windows, Two Chairs

The Three Windows / Le tre finestre (La pianura della torre)
Jessie Boswell (1924) / Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna, Turin 2023

Who lived their lives among
the rolling hills we see
in these windows? Ajar,

they beckon summer’s sweet
air into the nearly
vacant room. Two chairs are

turned toward the windows’ light.
On the bare floor a book
lies open for any

breeze. A stick leans against
a wall, meant to prevent
the door’s closing. Someone,

from the windows, must have
enjoyed the white stone walls,
red roofs of the dwellings

nearby. At first they might
have seemed to be scattered
across the land, rather

than, by common assent,
built beside their fenced-in,
burgeoning crops planted

in green, neat rows along
the flows of water. Far
off a tower, in its

maze of walls, white in sun,
paces the highest ridge.
From this height, who would not

wonder what might be seen
at the land’s conclusion—
though there can never be

an end—beneath the sky’s
textured blue and white wisps
of cloud? Perhaps, beyond,

a still lake reflected
the sun, or an ocean
there, ships buoyant upon

undulations of waves
as they approached the shore.
The artist’s brush and knife

can shape the distance, light’s
indistinctions, in folds
of paint. Windows picture

the sea and sky as one,
an end. The room had been
a place to watch the light’s

permutations, the clouds
as they were held by wind.
They looked as if they were

floating in the expanse
of blue. Weather is all.
Yet only the eyes, once

thought to be the gateway
to the soul, could reveal
what was left unspoken.

Brendola, Veneto, Italy
June/July 2023

Absence

We know these green
mountains, trees, vines
whose white flowers
adorn these stone walls

shaped by the hands
of others, this
abode — we know
know their absence.

Marano sul Panaro, Emilia Romagna, Italy
June 2023

Venice at Dawn

Early light, flat marsh,
the mountains appear
beyond morning’s mist—
the waters of life,
our visible world.

Mestre, Venice, Italy
July 2023

Roses

Oh roses
bowing down —
your supple

obeisance
among spring’s
shadows, your

red dark — what
must become
of us all

beneath the
gaudy sun
of summer?

Maplewood, New Jersey
May 2023