For background there are only
the plain whitewashed walls
and the cold snowlight
pouring into the room
through the tall icy windows.
The picture's single figure
central in the frame
is a French nun in white habit.
At the photographer 's direction
she has removed with a razor
her long black eyebrows
and stands now at a scrubbed pine table
behind the four ivory colored eggs
he has placed there in the white light
that flows through the clear pitcher of milk
positioned just to her left.
From out of a linen sack
she has just withdrawn two great handfuls of flour
and these she holds out before her
filling the whole center of the frame.
At the moment the shutter snaps open
she is exploring the powder
with her lowered eyes
as if searching for the secret of bread.
The photographer is jubilant.
The negative in its wash
looks like a thin slice of coal
but as he holds it up to the window
the darkness between the nun's black hands
begins to burn with a thousand points of light
a,) if she were holding all the stars of a winter sky.
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