Before The Painting Poem by Charl JF Cilliers

On the bland white
sweep of the canvas a crooked path leads
down to a gully on the right
and a dark isolated figure by a clump of reeds.

The afternoon is so bright
that dust motes can be seen
flaring in the winding path
soaked in sunlight.

This is what the eye sees.

Not the brush, behind the scene,
where the artist, in a brief
instant of longing, gathers up unseen
a whole life’s joy and grief
into an immortal moment of belief