Loneliness is a sketchwork of pen and ink of iron gall, Brushed over in brown wash of wood soot from oak, Disguised then under tempera of golden-ratio of yolk, Flared over with fiery oils to the smoke-blurred brink, sfumato, Or pigment of the fresco, a shade of off-life, languid as watercolor, Or from the too-fondly-felt impasto knife.
But bares its bones in the light-dark cleft of Caravaggio, With diminutions of death and the storm’s dark imbroglio, And sunlight as flesh made into soul, The skin stretched whole around the world.
Each sky is just a sketch Of loneliness, left unsigned, By every hand.
“Iron gall” was the vegetable-based ink common in Europe from the 5th-19th centuries. “Brown wash” was a wash of wood soot over the ink drawing to enhance the dimensions. Tempera refers to pigments mixed with egg-yolk. The “golden ratio” was the famed Greek ratio of beauty (1.618...) applied to art and architecture. “Sfumato” means “evaporate like smoke” and refers to the technique employed heavily by da Vinci and the Renaissance masters to blur outlines for a softening, misty effect.