The False Mirror (Magritte), Sonnet #195
That sense of void, when the stranger in the mirror
Doesn't know you either, will not evaporate
Until a moment passes, as though time is fear,
And nothing vanishes between the soon and late.
I seldom question why I know which me is me.
My eyes are nearly always blue with flecks of gold.
It's when I'm caught unaware that eternity
Stares vacantly with a face neither young nor old.
Other times, the wonder at myself is so strong,
So unbelieving, I think something got it wrong:
How can my next few thoughts be anything but theirs,
Whoever they are, and the near-cloudless blue sky
Be mine (and don't chalk it up to mental errors),
Because it's mirrored in the pupil of my eye?
Starry Night Over The Rhone (Van Gogh), Sonnet #194
Today the stars are almost gone.
City lights have taken their place;
Their halogen fixtures erase
Them as thoroughly as the sun.
I lived on a river; some nights
I'd lie down on a pier and look
At rays I didn't dare to name,
As though I didn't have the right
To remember stars from a book
And think what I saw was the same.
Sometimes I'd watch Polaris fly
In the river, which made it grow
And blink like the eye of a crow
That could see itself in the sky.
