A picture is a poem without words.

Host: The morning was slow, honey-colored, and full of silence. Through the wide windows of an old gallery, the sunlight spilled in like liquid gold, crawling over paintings that hung in still adoration of their own stories. The faint smell of oil and dust lingered in the air — a scent of time itself. Jack stood with his hands in his pockets, his grey eyes locked on a large canvas — a storm of color and shadow. Jeeny was beside him, her small frame reflected in the glass, her brown eyes soft and shining with quiet awe.

Jeeny: “Horace once said, ‘A picture is a poem without words.’ Don’t you think that’s beautiful? To tell a story without ever speaking — to let the colors do the talking.”

Jack: “Beautiful? Maybe. But it’s also a lie.”

Host: His voice was low, almost swallowed by the echo of the empty room. The light cut across his face, half in gold, half in shadow, like a man torn between what he could see and what he refused to feel.

Jeeny: “A lie?”

Jack: “Yes. Pictures don’t tell truths, Jeeny. They hide them. You look at a painting, and you think you’re seeing the artist’s soul, but what you’re really seeing is the mask he painted for himself. Every stroke is a choice, every shade a distortion. You call it a poem; I call it a performance.”

Jeeny: “Then you’ve never really looked.”

Host: Her voice was gentle, but it cut through the air with the precision of a knife. Jack turned, his brow furrowed, as she stepped closer to the canvas.

Jeeny: “A poem isn’t about truth in the scientific sense, Jack. It’s about truth in the human sense. The kind that lives in the spaces between facts. This painting — look at it. That woman’s face isn’t perfect, but the way her eyes hold the light — it tells you everything you need to know about grief, or hope, or whatever the artist felt that day. That’s what Horace meant. It’s not about what it shows. It’s about what it awakens.”

Jack: “So we’re supposed to find meaning in brushstrokes and feelings? That’s dangerous. Emotion makes people see what they want to see, not what’s really there.”

Jeeny: “And logic blinds them to what’s already there.”

Host: A group of visitors passed behind them — their voices soft, their footsteps echoing like the faint ticking of a clock. A child laughed, and the sound fluttered through the gallery like a small bird.

Jack: “You think that painting can say as much as a poem? Words have precision, structure, memory. A picture is static — it doesn’t breathe.”

Jeeny: “Oh, but it does. Every time someone looks at it, it breathes differently. That’s the beauty of it. A poem can only mean what the poet intended. But a painting — it’s a mirror. You bring your own soul to it.”

Host: Jack stepped closer to the painting, studying it as if it were a puzzle waiting to be solved. The woman on the canvas stared back — her eyes caught between sorrow and serenity.

Jack: “So you’re saying the painting isn’t about the artist at all. It’s about the viewer.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. That’s why Horace called it a poem without words. Because it speaks to something that words can’t touch.”

Jack: “Or maybe it hides behind the absence of words — because words make you accountable. You can’t argue with a painting. You can just stand there and pretend to understand.”

Jeeny: “You sound like someone who’s afraid of silence.”

Host: The light shifted as a cloud passed, dimming the room for a brief, trembling moment. Jack looked at her, his eyes narrowing — not in anger, but in something heavier.

Jack: “You think silence is sacred, don’t you? But silence can deceive too. Look at propaganda art — bright, bold, heroic. Every dictator knew how to paint a picture. Hitler’s Germany, Stalin’s Russia — all of them turned art into myth, and myth into control. A poem might make you think, but a picture — a picture can make you believe a lie before you even know you’ve swallowed it.”

Jeeny: “And yet, the same power can heal. Remember that photograph of the man standing in front of the tank in Tiananmen Square? No words — just a still image. But it became a poem of courage, of resistance. That one picture said more than any manifesto could. The danger isn’t in the picture itself, Jack — it’s in the intent behind it.”

Host: The sunlight returned, spilling warmth again over their faces. Jack’s shoulders eased slightly. For a moment, the fight between them softened into something more like reflection.

Jack: “So maybe you’re right. Maybe a picture can hold meaning. But it’s not poetry, Jeeny. It’s a mirror, and mirrors don’t create — they just reflect.”

Jeeny: “Then tell me why we cry when we see a painting. Why do we stand still before a sunset and feel something stir that we can’t name? If reflection alone did that, then we’d feel nothing. But we do, Jack. We always do.”

Jack: “Because we want to. We need to. The world’s too empty without those illusions.”

Jeeny: “They’re not illusions. They’re translations — from the heart to the eye. The same way a poem is a translation from the heart to the tongue.”

Host: The room had emptied now. Only the two of them remained, their voices soft in the vast hush of the gallery. Dust motes danced in the sunlight like tiny ghosts.

Jack: “Do you ever think maybe we rely too much on beauty to explain what’s wrong with us?”

Jeeny: “No. I think beauty is the only thing that reminds us we’re still human.”

Jack: “Even when it lies?”

Jeeny: “Especially when it lies. Because even lies can tell us what we wish were true. And sometimes, that’s all we have.”

Host: Her words hung there — fragile, but heavy with their own quiet gravity. Jack looked back at the painting, his expression softening. The woman’s eyes seemed to change again — or perhaps it was just the light shifting once more.

Jack: “You know… when I was a kid, my mother used to paint. She never talked much. But when she did, she said the same thing — that a picture says what you can’t bear to say out loud. Maybe that’s what Horace meant.”

Jeeny: “Then you understand him after all.”

Jack: “Maybe I just didn’t want to.”

Jeeny: “Why?”

Jack: “Because it’s easier to see the world in facts than in feelings. Feelings don’t obey rules.”

Jeeny: “Neither does art. And that’s why it survives us.”

Host: A long silence settled — the kind that feels almost sacred. Outside, a tree’s shadow swayed across the floor like a slow wave. The gallery felt alive, as if the paintings themselves were listening.

Jack: “So — a picture is a poem without words.”

Jeeny: “Yes.”

Jack: “Then maybe a poem is just a picture without light.”

Host: Jeeny smiled — small, knowing, infinite.

Jeeny: “Maybe they’re both the same thing, Jack. Two ways of telling the world — I was here, and I felt something.”

Host: The sunlight slid across their faces one last time before fading behind the tall windows. In its retreat, the colors deepened — the reds like embers, the blues like dreams. The painting seemed to breathe, alive with all the things that could never be spoken.

And as they stood in the quiet, side by side, the Host whispered, like the soft closing of a curtain:

Host: “Perhaps words and images are just different shadows of the same light — and every soul that looks, paints, or writes, is only trying to remember how to see.”