“The Brook” by John Singer Sargent (1907)

Inspired by lines in...

“In a Dark Time” by Theodore Roethke

“The Eye Begins to See”

What we see is
not always what is.
Two lovely young women
are lying in a brook
in the many greens of fluidity.
Then the eye refocuses to see
the brook is actually flowing
in the upper right-hand corner.
The painter has extended the brook
to make it look as if the water
is flowing over them.
Such is the genius of the artist
who helps us see the magic
in water and young women
the beauty in the unbelievable.