Self-Portrait

A young face floats before a dark ground.

Hair combed back, a black suit, a tie slightly askew.

The eyes do not look straight ahead. Gazing at something, they turn toward a far place that is not here.

In those eyes are dreams not yet spoken and the sorrow of youth, together.

The lips are firmly closed, but behind them lie countless words yet to be painted.

In a strange land, he quietly looks into his own face.

Between the place he has left and the place not yet reached, he sets himself upright with the brush.

What he painted was not his youthful appearance.

It was the first face of his own being, thrown alone into the world.

Longing had already begun in that averted gaze.

He did not know then that, much later, this face would become an old man standing alone in an empty field. But his eyes were already looking toward that distant place.