Balthus

Seigneur of a longlost summer,
-Those worshipful days, wandering through Italy,
Noticing Piero’s geometry everywhere,-
He gazes out over the Alps from his castle window,
And breathes a sovereign love.
Enigmas edge his long thin silhouette.
Seducer and seduced.

There is no beauty like the beauty of young girls.
Radiance of prepubescence
Is the artist’s elixir.
There is reverence in his Mephistophelean passion,
Supreme sensuality darting away
Like a unicorn in the trees.
Such beauty is the terrible crux.

He creates the grandeur due to him,
An aristocrat by temper, not by birth,
His hauteur but the sable cloak of kindness.
Distance is his medium, the art of secrecy
That vouchsafes the truly human,
Which is only, when all is said and done,
A kind of atmosphere.

A single work deserves the toil of years,
Perpetually changing, determined not to become
Too much itself. The sole pleasure is that moment
When it seems, against the odds,
To be complete, an illusion which all too soon
Passes, allowing the usual frustration
To do its necessary work.