Ekphrasis

Mourning Picture

Edwin Romanzo Elmer (1890)

"Mourning Picture"

Adrienne Rich (1965)

They have carried the mahogany chair and the cane rocker

out under the lilac bush,

and my father and mother darkly sit there, in black clothes.

Our clapboard house stands fast on its hill,

my doll lies in her wicker pram

gazing at western Massachusetts.

This was our world.

I could remake each shaft of grass

feeling its rasp on my fingers,

draw out the map of every lilac leaf

or the net of veins on my father's

grief-tranced hand.

Out of my head, half-bursting,
still filling, the dream condenses--
shadows, crystals, ceilings, meadows, globes of dew.
Under the dull green of the lilacs, out in the light
carving each spoke of the pram, the turned porch-pillars,
under high early-summer clouds,
I am Effie, visible and invisible,
remembering and remembered.

**I wish I was the one who wrote this ekphrastic poem. I was deeply touched by it and can't help not to feel sad. The last two lines have very strong impact. It was in these lines where I realized the girl in the painting died already, that she was just a wandering soul-- the reason why the picture was called "Mourning Picture" and yet it did not cross the border of sentimentality.