The Unfinished Portrait

(for Debbie)

The unfinished portrait is love.
Every day I try to finish it but never
seem to capture her beauty and purity,
a stroke here and there, but she always
looks more beautiful.

The unfinished portrait is love.
Every day I come to look at it and admire it,
her face has always captured my imagination,
yet there are still many pieces missing
and I cannot put it together.

She is much too beautiful to the eye.

The unfinished portrait is love.
Every day I come in tears to have a brief
glimpse of an imperfect likeness, finally
I gave it up, I will no longer try to
paint her.

But I picked up the brush once more and
began to paint.

The unfinished portrait is love.
You will not find her in the paintings
of da Vinci, Botticelli or Michelangelo.
She is never finished, but always there.
Never complete, yet always whole.

Like Van Gogh without an ear,
the unfinished portrait is love.


   July 3, 1986
--Alexander Shaumyan