Rembrandt's Late Self-Portraits, by E. Jennings

Lent, Day 21

You are confronted with yourself. Each year
The pouches fill, the skin is uglier.
You give it all unflinchingly. You stare
Into yourself, beyond. Your brush's care
Runs with self-knowledge. Here

Is a humility at one with craft.
There is no arrogance. Pride is apart
From this self-scrutiny. You make light drift
The way you want. Your face is bruised and hurt
But there is still love left.

Love of the art and others. To the last
Experiment went on. You stared beyond
Your age, the times. You also plucked the past
And tempered it. Self-portraits understand,
And old age can divest,

With truthful changes, us of fear of death.
Look, a new anguish. There, the bloated nose,
The sadness and the joy. To paint's to breathe,
And all the darknesses are dared. You chose
What each must reckon with.

Don't think this was a self-portrait, but it's the Rembrandt I love, and have hanging in my home. Unlike him, I was unable to make light drift the way I want, but decided in the end, that the reflection of our candles makes me think of the dinner party that the elderly father is about to throw for his homecome son.

Plucked up my courage, and started sorting my Mum's stuff that is making our lounge uninhabitable - the darkness dared - I never know when a new anguish will hit... a photo of her in hospital after a fall in the Home - "Your face is bruised and hurt/ But there is still love left."

Will go tackle a bit more.