Poem:Watching the “Age of Innocence” decades later

Michelle Pffeifer

Your hair is a sunlit halo

Your face is porcelain skin

Your lips are pillowed flowers opened

Your eyes wide set twin lakes glistening

Your nose is a sculptured rose

Your brows arch as beacons

The celluloid vision of you in eternal youth

from the Age of Innocence

where you embodied fireplace and sunset

a Victorian goddess of elegance

a golden lioness of radiance

with lace parasols, hoop skirts like bells

pearl buttoned gloves, fox trimmed coats

and fish net veils etching layers of rose

along your eyes, high cheeks and nose

like temporary, translucent, tattoos

of exquisite art, like perfect beauty marks.

Criterion Collection

I first watched “The Age of Innocence” when I was in my twenties the same year I moved to the SF Bay Area. I loved period films; I still do, I love the elaborate costumes, the settings, the romantic themes and the formalities. I watched the film again last night and it was just as meaningfully good. Classic stories are timeless.