Who lives a still life? he asked.
It was the end of the day,
he was alone.
He could think of a few souls
living quietly, not doing much,
letting the days go by.
They would say they were busy
exercising their minds,
reading sporadically,
worrying a little about distant children,
noisy neighbours, absent friends,
the state of the house.
But they espoused stillness,
enjoyed the afternoon light
as it fell across the windowed sill
illuminating that Venetian vase.
They were not anxious about making tea,
just yet. It was good, this being still.

She often wondered about the still life,
the artists’ ultimate challenge, duty even
to that most particular of genres;
the attempt to catch the moment,
the fleeting moment, it could only be
a moment when light fell
sharp or diffused on objects chosen
or arranged, a never to be recovered
moment, except by the painter’s hand.

Here was a chair,
a red armchair in a room
almost certainly in Gordon Square,
Bloomsbury, a Vanessa Bell, she said,
painted in, well, 1934 or 5,
and very characteristic then,
its dark blue cushion
plumped for a soon-to-be sitter.
It stands in front of her painted screen,
obscuring the lower part of the window
open to the morning, yesterday’s flowers
in a vase nearby, on a table with books.

And above the chair,
a small painting hangs,
an intimate scene,
left of the window where
the long curtains fall
to a still pool of fabric
gathered on the wooden floor.