Poem: The Unfinished Portrait

I wrote a poem about the “Birth of a Painting”. The thought extended to an unfinished portrait. Consider this as a sequel. Dedicated to all the visual artists in my universe.

Poem: The Unfinished Portrait

What the mind conceives
The mixtures of pastel
Like a gravy on the palette
Pure and primary colors
Then those colors when mixed
Like interracial children
Yet beautiful on their own
A new creation in progress
A portrait, oeuvre is on
Visualization within
Translated to visual art…

Then…
A pause and
No more brush strokes
The portrait is unfinished
The absent brushstrokes
Are the untold parts
The ebb and flow of strokes
Like a bountiful, bubbling stream
Pauses, frozen in time, leaving —
Untold tales of color and hue
Letting the beholder interpret

That makes me wonder
What if a flower was unfinished?
Like a missing petal out of the five or
The yellow dots that make the pollen;
Would a bee understand
The flower’s imperfection?
Would it still hover around in search?

The imperfections of the twilight
The human mind can never decipher
A perfectness in the incomplete oeuvre
A calm arrangement of cacophonous colors
The diurnals, too tired to take notice
The celestial portrait hurried yet unfinished
Before the black-and-diamond curtain falls

The moment that the brush paused
The moment is frozen in time
The moment a memory arrived
The moment things turned different
The moment a heart was broken
The moment a birdie flew away
The moment the rivers ran dry
The moment the focus lapsed
The moment —
The imperfect portrait was born

Maybe a teardrop
Maybe a torn heart
That felt that the portrait
Was indeed telling too much
A wrong stroke perhaps
A tad, little imperfect
The pastel too thick, or
Perhaps too thin
Or a simple change of mind
Seeking another start
Or a pause and reflection
Or it couldn’t happen

The absent brushstrokes
That could have completed
The now the partial creation
Imperfect, it is —
The unfinished portrait
Just the signature is then left
The mark of the creator
Right there, at right bottom
For the unfinished portrait
Is art by itself?
~Ashok Subramanian © 2024