Bronze Song
In the Dutch Room you could hear it wailing like a siren
from its trumpet, the ancient Shang Dynasty Gu finding
its old voice, remembering the sweet notes of persimmon
and plum, the prosperity of mandarin, as they joined
with boiled rice in that sacred dance of the Yin and the Yang,
a fever of fingers grasped firmly around its torso,
palm for support underneath its delicately flared base,
last sounds blaring as thieves slit the fabric, broke the goblet
from its metal stand, its bronze song carrying in the dark.
NOTE: On March 18, 1990, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston was subject to perhaps the most notorious art robbery in history.
Restless
The lady’s fingers are perched on that final chord, perhaps a Picardy third, its shy glint of hope pierced by the fangs of time. We can almost hear the hush of the virginal as the wire-flesh of those once shimmering tones turns to dust. The man holding a lute rests against his chair. Another young woman sings by his side, her last breath, a rush of air that her lungs never chamber. This mute Trinity are but living shadows forever hinged to anticipation. They linger in harmony, the next sacred phrase lace-trimmed but always beyond their reach.
NOTE: On March 18, 1990, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston was subject to perhaps the most notorious art robbery in history.
Robert Fillman is the author of House Bird (Terrapin, 2022) and November Weather Spell (Main Street Rag, 2019). Individual poems have appeared in Poetry East, Salamander, Spoon River Poetry Review, Tar River Poetry, Verse Daily, and elsewhere. He teaches at Kutztown University in eastern Pennsylvania.