Listen to the Painting

Who’da thought life’s rhythms

Could be caught on burlap best,

When all along WORDS were

The universal test?

The first of which was God’s

Description of life’s essence

For all to wonder,

In languages too numerous to ponder.

And so we speak and write and search,

And even go to church,

To find the right words so our spirit

Won’t be left in the lurch.

There is enough music and poems,

With their cadence and pace,

To echo the rhythms of the universe.

But to hear breathing and heartbeats,

That come and go,

We have only paintings and pictures of long ago.

They strive for sensations,

And not reverent thoughts,

From a portrait of people, or

A seascape of force.
Viewed in silence by all who see,

The painting talks to both you and me,

To look backward and touch,

A long ago soul who gave us so much;

And whose presence we still touch,

We can abstract our minds,

To look, see, listen and hear,

The pictures haunting rhymes.



----9/18/06
Recited 10/6/06