Generally, reading palms or handwriting or faces Is a job of translation, since the kind
Gentleman often is
A seducer, the frowning schoolgirl may
Be dying to be asked to stay;
But the body of this old lady exactly indicates her mind;
Rorschach or Binct could not add to what a fool can see
From the plain fact that she is alive and well;
For when one is eighty Even a teeny-weeny bit of greed
Makes one very ill indeed,
And a touch of despair is instantaneously fatal:
Whether the town once drank bubbly out of her shoes or whether
She was a governess with a good name
In Church circles, if her
Husband spoiled her or if she lost her son,
Is by this time all one.
She survived her true condition; she forgave; she became.
So the painter may please himself; give her an English park,
Rice-fields in China, or a slum tenement;
Make the sky light or dark;
Put green plush behind her or a red brick wall.
She will compose them all,
Centring the eye on their essential human element.