JEFFREY HARRISON

VERMEER ROAD TRIP

            for Bob Cording

We left our wives and children and headed south

for Washington, two middle-aged men

who could have gotten ourselves into trouble

had we been looking for adventure

instead of something like its opposite:

the apotheosis of the ordinary,

moments held like a pearl in a balance

or drawn out and poured like a stream of milk

from an earthenware pitcher.

We talked about Vermeer, and about poetry,

though I made us promise never to write poems

about Vermeer--there were already enough of those. . .

a promise which I seem to be breaking now.

But this isn't really about Vermeer,

it's about the trip down and the trip back

when we stopped in New York to see

the handful of Vermeers at the Met and Frick

and have a quick sandwich on Madison.

In the closed-off world of the car, seen through

that camera obscura at high speed,

our own lives seemed as tranquil as Vermeers,

anything that might resemble drudgery

refined to sacrament, everything messy

or violent left outside the frame,

the way Vermeer left out the chaos

of his household, the stink of chamber pots,

the needs and noise of his eleven children.

We talked about our wives as if

they were as young and opalescent

as the "Girl with a Pearl Earring"

or spent whole portions of their days

just standing in the sanctifying light

that slanted through a window's leaded panes--

as though we lived in a world where no one

aged or raised his voice in anger.

We were sentimental, as only men can be,

the boring counterparts of Thelma and Louise,

as happy to be going home

as we'd been happy to leave.

First published in TRP’s 25th Anniversary issue, Fall 2003; copyright © 2003 by Tar River Poetry.

All rights reserved.