Twixt what is there and what we see
resides, he felt, reality.
Corneal scars upon his sight
scatter bright dendritic light,
a retinue of courtiers bow
beneath the painter’s anxious brow,
the sun brings aching warmth to what
he endeavours to construct -
not ageing face but inward pulse
upon the mirror’s true but false
impression of time’s interplay
when image past and present may
share with pain to clear portray
not merely continuity -
the history of what we see -
but a portrait’s self-discovery.
©Terry Hodgson2020
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