I was musing on the Mona Lisa’s smile.

It is almost as if she’d like to wink at me.

Not an awful face-disfiguring grimace;

full of teeth but the fluttering of an eyelid.

Yes, that’s it the smile is from the inside,

it filters upwards from her little toe-

as if by osmosis, to bud to tug

softly at the corner of her mouth.

 

Dear Shadow, my Aussie Canine friend

is watching me, as my fingers search

diligently for a keyboard letter or

my mind chases after words to

fill out a line in this painted poem,

of lips and smiles and tilts of head.

Shadow is a mistress of this skill.

Her lips, in repose, gently form the smile

which has mystified seekers of truths,

down through long centuries in galleries

where people are quiet and clarity of

thought, is so loud that it scratches behind

an itching ear seeking an answer to the

question of the Mona Lisa’s smile.

Shadow knows, always knew, has asked me!

“When is my delicious dinner to be served?”

Smile!

 

David Garlick, Sidney, October, 2007