Mystique: Reflections on a Painting by Paul Delvaux

Banished to a treeless valley
bound by mountains and an ice-clogged bay
several identical young ladies
patient under the brief sun
sit erect in straight back chairs
outside the plain doors of facing bungalows
hands interlocked on their laps
thighs and ankles touching under silk gowns
in their faces aspects of drifting snow
in their eyes a memory of the moon
framed in the frost of their windows

Far from buxom peasants stacking straw
or mannequins kicking net-stockinged legs
or tilted angels gilded in palpable piety
or naive ballerinas bathed in chiffon auras
theirs are wistful and immaculate forms
as stark as their mountains
as chaste as their sorrows
and as terrible as the sea