sara Etgen-Baker Poet Ekphrasis

Notes About The Poem

"The Woman by the Sea" image from metmuseum.org

“Renoir painted “Woman by the Seashore” (also titled “By the Seashore”) in 1883.  The model was Aline Charigot, his then-girlfriend (later his wife), and the painting is now housed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.” (Source: wikiart.com)

poem submitted to "No. 1500 September Part 3" poetry contest, Brian Strand, sponsor, 9/14/2026

 

Woman by the Seashore (Renoir)

I stand where the shoreline loosens  
into a languid, lapidary sheen,  
the sea’s  s l o w  syllables brushing  
against my bare ankles  
as though rehearsing a tenderness  
older than tide or time.  

Renoir calls me beloved,  
but here, in this salt-scented solitude,  
I am simply Aline~  
     a woman woven from warm wind  
          and the quiet confidence  
               of knowing beauty need not boast  
to be seen.

The wind gathers my hair  
into a loose aureate arc,  
a halo of unhurried radiance  
that reminds me of another woman~  
     my grandmother’s soft repose  
          captured in a sepia photograph,  
               her smile a small, shimmering vow  
                    to savor whatever beauty  
the day allowed.

Sometimes I feel her near me,  
a soft pressure beneath the ribs,  
not speaking,  
just settling there~  
     the way certain women carry light  
          without meaning to,  
               letting it gather in them~  
a bequeathed light she left behind.

The waves carry a wandering lexicon,  
their brine-bright syllables brushing my skin  
with a rhythm too ancient  
to settle into anything tidy.  

Their shifting utterances recall  
the lineage of the women  
who taught me elegance  
not as ornament  
but as orientation~  
     a way of moving through the world  
          with deliberate softness,  
               with a serenity that startles  
only those who mistake noise  
     for significance.

Renoir’s gaze, warm as a whispered promise,  
renders me in roseate strokes,  
as though my stillness  
were a kind of heat~  
     the sort that gathers slowly  
          and stays without trembling.  

He paints me not as muse  
but as moment:  
     the pause between heartbeats,  
          the place where light  
               learns to linger.

Yet I am more than his moment.  
I am the marrow of my own meaning,  
the keeper of subtle affinities~  
     opaline mornings,  
          the salt-lit breath of the sea,  
               the silken drift of a dress  
                    stirred by wind’s wandering hand.  

I am the woman who gathers  
small gleamings of the world  
and carries them gently,  
as though each were a secret  
worth sheltering.

Let the waves witness me.  
Let the sky sketch its soft signature  
across my gaze.  
Let the day dissolve  
into a palette of pale gold  
and tender blue. 
 
For in this luminous stillness,  
I am both Aline and echo~  
     both woman and memory,  
          both the painter’s beloved  
               and the granddaughter’s inheritance  
of unassuming, unstudied grace.

And if the world sees me  
as a figure framed in light,  
let it also sense the lineage  
that lives behind my smile~  
     the women who stood  
          at the edge of the world  
and felt it o p e n,  
     felt it b r e a t h e, 
          felt it b l e s s them  
with its boundless,  
b
  r
   i 
   m
     m
        i 
         n
            g 
                    blue.

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Kim Rodrigues September 14, 2026 at 5:11 AM Funny how we can capture the image and yet there is much more to the person. Enjoyed reading!