The Vanishing Point

Where does the vanishing point go?

Photo by Birmingham Museums Trust on Unsplash

The Vanishing Point

first published in Solum Journal Volume IV

I stood in a dusty gallery 

with an aged landscape— 


framed with 

foreground trees

bent inward 

beneath blue,

the horizon’s steep 

sky enfolded over 

burgeoning branches, 

in view 


distant figures, 

a lifeless horse,

blurred—

the artist’s lines

swallowing,

their end,

a destiny,

inferred


and I wondered—

at its two dimensions,

man-mixed colors,

the curtain of trees

of knowledge, 

of life,

framing the scene, 

forging skyline—


that what is formed

with words, and dust 

could converge

with what’s imagined,

a promised line

between earth

and heaven—


so that my eyes

have nowhere else

to go—

but to that point, 

invisible, but known,

the place where 

storied trees

are fully grown.