There is no better painting than a sunrise,
Nor colors more majestic than its glow,
Nor canvas so immense that it might outsize
The spectacle that every day we know.
There is no love as moving as our own love,
Nor character as complex as our own,
Nor ecstasy as sweet as we have known of
Since puberty, though chaste till we were grown.
Why should we turn from windows to a wall
On which there hangs a mere interpretation,
When just outside the colors of the fall
Surpass the most inspired imagination?
Like God writ small, the artist would say, "Light!"
And eternity comes forth from night.
Copyright by Nicholas Gordon. Free for personal or non-commercial use.
