Old labourers deep in prayer.
Chores over until the morrow.
Broken hands with stunted fingures
Clasped together desperately.
Pollarded fruit trees reaching high,
Branches cut back with precision
To stimulate new growth and blossom,
The sky the colour of ripening cherries.
Two girls dressed in warm kimonos
Stand beside a turquoise lake.
They stand quite still, listening to silence
Ebb and flow through the stillness.
The chill air of an April evening
Tainted with a scent of frost
Has filled thatched homes with yellow light.
Candles burn behind closed windows.
As secret as the quiet interiors
Of these houses by the lake,
The labourers pray beyond the limits
Of this beauty their work has made.
The artist, printing on fine paper
The delicate textures of this scene,
Thinks only of the plum tree blossoms
As he deftly grades the inks.
He also is outside the limits
Of this scene he replicates.
The two girls standing by the lake
Break the silence with a laugh.
Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
May 2nd. 2021.
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