Assumptions (14)

Posted on by Beleaguered Servant

I look at paintings and I think
How full and wondrous it must be
To see or dream, and then to make
That vision a reality.

How I would love, with colored brush,
To bring a world inside my mind
To canvas for the world too see,
And leave this drab gray one behind —

But then recall, with some chagrin,
My father was an artist who
Put brush and paint away for good
When he was only thirty-two.

For though he loved to paint, he was
In a too-common situation:
What he could see, he couldn’t match,
And so stopped out of sheer

Frustration

Good Friends

Posted on by Beleaguered Servant
"Good Friends" - by William Merritt Chase
“Good Friends” – by William Merritt Chase

She and she were best of friends
A century past, in a sunny place;
Brought back to vibrant life today
In art by William Merritt Chase

I saw a gallery of his work
And stopped and gazed, hour on hour’
And felt, somehow, that I had been
Where he had been, by some strange power

Been on the beach, or in a grove,
Been in a park, or off in Spain;
Or been with two friends on a lawn
In some way that I can’t explain

And like this woman and this dog
I felt a kinship to this man
I’d never heard of anywhere
Before I saw his work, firsthand

Sunny Spain

Posted on by Beleaguered Servant
"Sunny Spain" by William Merritt Chase
“Sunny Spain” by William Merritt Chase

I wish I was in sunny Spain
Where I could find my life again
And breathe the air of inspiration
At least, in my imagination

I’d travel to a distant spot
That modern times had long forgot
And work all day out on the land
A healthy, fit and tanning man –

Or maybe not. That doesn’t sound
Like what life’s like when I’m around:
More likely, in my ease arrayed
I’d sip sangria in the shade