A Passing Glimpse
As someone with wacky vision (myopic in one eye/hyperopic in the other), I have often theorized that some artists, such as vanGogh perhaps, use their passing visual misinterpretations of reality as inspiration for their creativity. Without my glasses on, I often see odd shapes and colors and have to work to understand what things might really be or how they might really appear, because what I see doesn't reconcile with what I know. It’s rather amusing sometimes. I wish I could remember some examples right now, but in the meantime, please enjoy today’s poetry selection which touches upon this idea.
A Passing Glimpse
by Robert Frost
To Ridgely Torrence
On Last Looking into His 'Hesperides'
I often see flowers from a passing car
That are gone before I can tell what they are.
I want to get out of the train and go back
To see what they were beside the track.
I name all the flowers I am sure they weren't;
Not fireweed loving where woods have burnt--
Not bluebells gracing a tunnel mouth--
Not lupine living on sand and drouth.
Was something brushed across my mind
That no one on earth will ever find?
Heaven gives its glimpses only to those
Not in position to look too close.
A Passing Glimpse
by Robert Frost
To Ridgely Torrence
On Last Looking into His 'Hesperides'
I often see flowers from a passing car
That are gone before I can tell what they are.
I want to get out of the train and go back
To see what they were beside the track.
I name all the flowers I am sure they weren't;
Not fireweed loving where woods have burnt--
Not bluebells gracing a tunnel mouth--
Not lupine living on sand and drouth.
Was something brushed across my mind
That no one on earth will ever find?
Heaven gives its glimpses only to those
Not in position to look too close.
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