BARBARA ROMAIN

Three haikus, painted across a sunrise.
Night on one side, dawn on the other, the sea underneath both — one canvas holding the moment the two change places. Her handwriting runs straight across the whole picture, indifferent to which is which.
She titled the text herself — THREE HAIKUS — and wrote it out in her own line breaks: Soft silvery blue / Gathers over the cool darkness / to cover the light · At dawn the pink glow / Creeps over the fading blue / And the light triumphs · How can we do wrong / And go astray in a world / with wonders like these?
The last three words are the ones she stencilled in capitals along the bottom edge. She had been legally blind for a quarter of a century when she painted a sunrise and put that question at the foot of it.
Acrylic on canvas.