Wallace Stevens - Two Illustrations that Cant Be Made

Two Illustrations that Can’t Be Made

The clear form has a sense, Clear light, too late, too late, The brushes taken and placed upright, Were only true.

No color that is saved, That again, light has gotten and placed, And while the brush works, All motion begins.

There is no sound, And all the truth to make, One eye to count the numbers, That mount with trees in a motion.

Not seeing only Or hearing, but sense, The whole clash of the form, Form that cannot see.

— Wallace Stevens, “Two Illustrations that Can’t Be Made”