Or Shades of Gray?

When I'm not crazy about the Puzzle of the Day given me for my daily jigsaw, I change it to fifty piece size just so I can work it quickly and have it show 'solved'. Then I choose a more appealing optional puzzle. That's what I did this morning when the daily puzzle was a brightly colored one.

I chose this much more engaging, to me, option. I think many would find it dull, perhaps depressing, but it pulls me right in. Its title was Gammel Strand in Copenhagen which is how I searched to find the artist. There were lots of search returns, just not the one I was looking for. I did learn though that gammel strand is modern Danish for old beach and originally meant the old shoreline prior to land reclamations.*

I finally found the artist for this painting - Paul Gustav Fischer (1860-1934) - and the title of this oil on canvas is Fishermen and Fishermen's Wives At Gammel Strand in Copenhagen. It was painted in 1918. 

As I was working this puzzle -this puzzle in many shades of gray - it reminded me of a poem I wrote in 1974:

Or Shades of Gray?

Fog shrouds all.

Out of the swirling mist

Glides a dark figure.

Enigmatic Leo.

Destined for heights greater than

One lifetime can attain.

Superior being.

And watching quietly

From smoky shadows,

A waft of light.

Desiring desparately

To come forth.

To meet, to melt, to become

Some small part of

His existence.

Black soul, you have

So much to give!

So much to become!

The fear of touching 

You is too great.

The elan is smothered

--- by the fog.

I watch you go --

Hungry for the taste of

What

Might have been.

Wondering if ever it

Will be.

I had just discovered free verse and that it didn't matter if I couldn't write a poem that rhymed or had a regular meter. And, obviously, I was trying to be enigmatic and romantic. 

Poetry and paintings and their creators have always been of interest to me. I can't paint pictures and I'm not good at writing poems, but I can appreciate them.

* I found the Wikipedia article about Gammel Strand interesting, as I did also looking at more of Fischer's artwork.