Het Straat je by Vermeer, c. 1657-58
  

It will rain soon, those clouds tell us as much, 
no deluge, a passing shower only, 
but enough to darken the bricks 
a shade or two and to puzzle the nearby 
canal. They have been warm to the touch 
all morning, the bricks, their ochre reds 

absorbing the sun. Think how those shutters 
will peel every summer, paint 
lifted from the wood, blain by blain. Life goes on 
as it always will now, unaltered, 
a woman bending near the tripe gutter, 
the children playing, and at the open 

doorway a woman sewing. The artist 
knows this is life pared down, mundane 
even, the domestic harmonies 
quietly observed, the beauty of the quotidian - 
in case we pass and do not notice. 
And those other lives we do not see 

but know are there behind the frontage, 
one trying on a dress, another crying 
alone, and someone reading a letter, 
all the unregarded moments of our being 
here just the once, and here forever unaged, 
our small concerns and yet ones that matter. 

* There are some dissenting voices but most agree that the painting
depicts the Vlamingstraat and the building to right is where
Vermeer's aunt lived. The passageway beside the house was
known as Pensport, or Tripe Gate.