Notes About The Poem
I have recently retire from 42 years of church ministry, the last 25 years as an ordained deacon in the Catholic Church. In these 42 years, a huge part of ministry has been ministering to grieving families. At the many wake/vigil prayers at which I presided, there are many picture boards protrayhing the deceased throught the entirety of the deceased's life: from infancy onward. It is the portraits of the deceased that have had the greatest attractin for me.
Portraiture
Have you ever looked into
the eyes of a portraiture?
In these wells of the soul
lay the expressive depths
of the human spirit,
the pain and sorrow,
the hopes and dreams,
the love and the joy,
and peace and reconciliation.
On the picture boards
at wakes and funerals,
I peer into the eyes of
the deceased, trying to
catch a glimpse of what
they were thinking, what
they were feeling at the
various times of their lives
portrayed from infancy
through their school years,
from courtship to weddings,
from young parenthood
to adolescent parenthood
to grandparenthood.
I love to pour through
my photographs of you,
generally late at night
when you are off to work,
slowly, carefully savoring
the intricate pattern of
shading, highlighting
your cheeks, your smile,
and most especially,
your eyes,
your dark brown eyes,
in whose mysterious depths
resides the beautiful
portraiture of God.
Copyright © Robert Wagner | Year Posted 2020
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