After the smoke
clouds and blue skies
quite like an old
Dutch master's canvas

How much they taught us
of clarity
and light - I'm thinking
of Vermeer

There's a print
from the Gardner
Vermeer's The Concert
one of my treasures
A woman sits
at the harpsichord
another sings
from a small book
The third - a man
his back to us
holding a lute
with a wide strap

Only the singer
faces us
we the imagined
audience
It's one of only
forty-two
paintings the master
left behind

And stolen! missing
thirty years
this print the closest
we can come

Bought at the Gardner
when Vermeer's
canvas still hung
on the wall

No sky no clouds
are in that room
but the light shining
through the window

Transforms the space
creates an aura
that lights up
the women's faces

The tenderness
of the painter's vision
teaches my eyes
to see today

These clouds not just
in greater detail
but with the attention
and the love
Of light and all
the sensuous world
thanks to the artist's
eye that saves

The world by painting
what we common
mortals would never
catch or miss

The Concert ( c. 1664) is a painting by Dutchman Johannes Vermeer
depicting a man and two women performing music.
It belonged to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston,
but was stolen in 1990 and remains missing.
Experts believe it may be the most valuable stolen object in the world;
as of 2015, it was valued at US$250 million.