PLAGIARISM AT ITS BEST -- SMILE EVERYONE CLICK!

MADONNA OF THE BLUE SCARF
http://stefanwashburn.blogspot.com/

I sure hope that ol' Stefan doesn't get offended.  This is not meant to offend anyone, just to make a rather innocent and somewhat humorous point about reality.  Since I have no idea who the model was, I have no reason to implicate any nastiness by what follows.
For years, and I mean years, [more than 10 but less than 20] I have been smiling at the recollection that I have of the poem that appears below.  It comes from a book of poetry that I discovered in a collection that had been donated to the St. Vincent de Paul Society chapter of the Holy Family Church in San Diego, California.  Since I have trouble letting books pass through my hands without first trying them on for size, I did the same with the collection that fell before me that one day.  It was my duty to go through the collection and decide what books, if any, should be kept from the wandering eyes of the poor souls who frequent the St. Vincent de Paul outlets around the world.  So that's what I was doing when I stumbled across the book of poetry that contained the poem below.  It is a nice poem, and, I think, an unforgettable bit of humor.  And, if Stefan will forgive me, a little like the Madonna of the Blue Scarf, perhaps an argument for iconoclasm.  Actually, that is not my main thought here, this time around.  My main thought is, <Do you know what you're looking at?>  The question continues, and is highlighted in this...

My Madonna

BY ROBERT W. SERVICE

I haled me a woman from the street,

   Shameless, but, oh, so fair!

I bade her sit in the model’s seat

   And I painted her sitting there.

I hid all trace of her heart unclean;

   I painted a babe at her breast;

I painted her as she might have been

   If the Worst had been the Best.

She laughed at my picture and went away.

   Then came, with a knowing nod,

A connoisseur, and I heard him say;

   “’Tis Mary, the Mother of God.”

So I painted a halo round her hair,

   And I sold her and took my fee,

And she hangs in the church of Saint Hillaire,

   Where you and all may see.

Source: The Best of Robert Service (1953)

Now, let me tell you what triggered this thought, or more truthfully said, this memory.  It was an email that I got today with a list of the 20 most intriguing questions in the world.  You have all received at one time or another a similar email with a similar list.  None of them dares to ask one of the most cryptographically challenging epistemological questions of all:  "How true is it when you say, <I can't believe my eyes.>?"  Do we ever know?  After reading the above poem and contemplating Stefan's painting, I think that we will forever be unsure.