Just Like Me (an ekphrastic poem based on the painting “Milkmaid” by Johannes Vermeer)

I steadily pour my work into a bowl,

In a room so bare, it has very little stories to be told.

Light only shines for 14 hours a day.

I work as much as I can.

My life has become routine for me,

As day after day I work with the cows.

Simple, a word fit for describing me.

I feel as if I am one with my surroundings.

I don’t have much, similar to the walls.

But unlike them, I have care.

The walls, slowly leaving

are the one thing we do not have in common.

Its messes show proof nobody has been here.

Much like the room, my companions are around me

In the same place they’ve always been.

Mine pass, the rooms’ stay.

The room stands, confined to one area,

While I can walk free.

My surroundings are just like me,

Yet I am not like them.