Here’s a painting by Rembrandt van Rijn – <br />mark how he bestows the light… <br /> <br />the light of Rembrandt’s conscious painted scenes <br />falls where consciousness itself shines strongest: <br /> <br />here on a thinking head, deep <br />in contemplation of the truth invisible; <br /> <br />here on a melting heart; there, <br />on a pregnant belly full of life; <br /> <br />on this marriage bed, her body <br />dissolves into the light of love; <br /> <br />here, the golden helmet and the breastplate <br />say, heroism has descended on mere man. <br /> <br />But mark, too, that other miracle: <br />see in this corner, the area of black paint: <br /> <br />this is not darkness; not negation of the light; <br />this is what cannot comprehend the light; <br /> <br />this is the darkness of the unmanifest, <br />from which all miracles shall in time arise: <br /> <br />this is the black paint stroked on the canvas <br />by the same dazzling intelligence <br />which was Rembrandt; the light <br />yet stored in darkness; what would that light <br />of things seen, be, without the mind <br />that understood and marked the not yet lit? <br /> <br />The secret of that darkness fills <br />with a brightness that's more beautiful than beauty, <br />the mind that knows to shut its mortal eyes.<br /><br />Michael Shepherd<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/rembrandt-s-darkness-rembrandt-s-light/
