--Dürer, 1514

All afternoon I worked and reworked my idea:
but nothing would cohere.  Mind crowded
with puzzles, I swept the table clear, retreated
to this window seat, this simmering
November sky, thinking how heavily
Dürer's winged angel sits upon her low step,
head in hands, amid a heap of cast-off baubles.

Her shadowy face glowers fiercely,
to where her compass, pen, and ruler
lie abandoned--even as her eyes
peer elsewhere:  bright, almost glaring,
as if by a sudden volt of intellect
or will, she has surmounted the clutter
and at this instant arrived cleanly
upon a creation entirely new, and pleasing.

Is it the sphere, freshly rolled from her lap,
perfect and glowing as a pearl?  Or does her gaze
focus beyond, where none of us can see,
her mind finally emptied and,
like these bare trees awash in amber,
framing what it cannot contain.