A splash, a streak, a riot of hue,
they call it child’s play,
a kindergarten scribble hung in gold frames.
Yet the canvas stares back, unblinking,
and something inside the chest
tightens or loosens
without permission.
It is never that simple.
Beneath the surface chaos
a quiet blade turns:
colour speaking in tongues
no dictionary owns.
Crimson whispers rage,
ultramarine calms the lungs,
ochre remembers old earth and forgotten suns.
The painting does not ask to be liked,
only felt.
It stirs the inner being,
that sleeping animal curled behind the ribs,
and sets it pacing.
No clear story, no gentle caption,
only a question thrown into the well of you.
You answer in silence,
or in sudden words that surprise even yourself.
The dialogue begins
between stranger and stranger:
the artist who is absent,
and the viewer who is suddenly naked.
Attach language and the danger grows.
A title can cage the wild thing,
a paragraph can clip its wings.
Better sometimes to let it roar
or weep
wordless.
For some it sings,
a low, vibrating chord
that hums in the marrow long after leaving the room.
For others it remains mute,
a decorated wall,
polite and empty.
Both responses are true.
The art does not fail;
it simply meets the soul
that arrives before it.
Abstract, they name it,
yet nothing is more concrete:
emotion stripped of alibi,
form freed from duty,
colour given permission
to tell the truth
we spend our lives
learning not to say.