Cassetta Frame (Italy, circa 1600)
Robert Lehman Collection, Metropolitan Museum of Art
I wonder what his hands were like – skin,
Thumbprint’s orbits, half moon of the nail --
The artisan who plied bough and alloy, chisel,
Stone, for the sake of circumscription:
Poplar, walnut, ebony, pear, niello,
Crystal, lapis. The words abscond from wood
And bloom in trees: Pioppo tremulo;
Forma di pera. I confess to find
Myself astonished by outskirts of things:
Hem and shirr, ice storm, sea coast, shadow, fringe,
To find myself forsworn to the mixture,
Poplar, walnut, ebony, pear,
Niello, crystal, lapis. Lapse! No life
But in the rim; no word but on the lips.
– Sarah Hannah
The poet Sarah Hannah – author of two fine books published by Tupelo Press, Longing Distance (2004) and Inflorescence (2007) – took her own life in May 2007. See Eva Salzman’s obituary essay in The Dartk Horse magazine, a version of which appears on-line in Contemporary Poetry Review: http://www.cprw.com/Misc/hannah.htm
