Munch’s Eye

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