[POEM] Ekphrastic Poem for "Before Our Eternal Silence" by Jenny Vogel

The following poem was written in response to the work of Jenny Vogel titled "Before Our Eternal Silence".

Details on the original art installation: http://www.jennyvogel.net/beforeour.html
Jenny Vogel's page: http://www.jennyvogel.net/projects.html

Why did you bare yourself

to the occupants of this room

to leave us to wander your history

as you call for your companion

everywhere your voice has gone before?

Would you have filled three tables

with anything else but clicking lamps,

your pulse a eulogy to a distant life?

How long has the heartbeat of your light

kept time with the crinkled scratches

from the faded phonograph, recounting

memory or calling for resurrected action?

Maybe, despite the futility of the gesture

you simply settled on gentle lights

and soft words to illuminate

a corner of a quiet room, a note

to hold until your lungs are empty,

proud and broken heart for all the moments

you remember lost to the faded walls.

Or maybe your voice is urgent, supplication

to the wide and open abandon

that you inhabit, that you leave

behind to spite the passage of time,

generations gone by as a way to

make your love infinite.