And Vermeer with his houseful of children
didn't paint some days, didn't even mix
powders or stretch canvasses, or clean palettes,
but hauled in firewood, cleaned out
a flue, repaired a broken cradle, remembering,
as he bent to his task, how light shone gold
on a woman’s flesh, and gathered
in drops on her pearls.

by Marylin Chandler McEntyre

https://paste.sr.ht/~rabbits/9b37da4202bf34401ae760dae27dbcb426eeb2de