Seeing with Closed Eyes

Choose a painting.
Then, take a mental snapshot of it—
not just the overall image,
but every detail you can possibly notice.
Now close your eyes.
Can you still see it clearly
in your mind’s eye,
as if it were a photograph?
There are things we fail to see even with our eyes open,
and things we can only truly see when our eyes are closed.
Like the face of a father who’s passed on,
or the memory of waiting for your mother
under the dripping edge of a roof in the rain
when you were seven.
Some images only come alive
when we close our eyes.
So we close them again.

memory, vision, emotion