I eke through the sand for gold crumbs left behind by long-departed pilgrims.
There I see her, amused.
How funny that we could think of this Muse as a mistress,
or a demanding lover,
when She only seems a stranger by the fact
That so rarely do we invite her in, and also
That She refuses to shout above the clamor and the din.
She hasn't ventured this far to be refused, once again, for some profane,
Dimwitted schedule
We imagine is our dutiful, pedestrian life.
She calls at the most unexpected moments. Indeed...
And if immediately you shall put everything you thought so important aside,
And tend to Her needs,
She shall fill your very goblet of longing with the nectar of centuries,
And the dust of feet trampling for countless miles along a godforsaken road
Shall all-at-once become a healing balm
Which can heal
And transform
Every cut and wound...
Her clothes might be torn by circumstance
or seeming demands of our professions.
Her hair might be unbrushed
And her regal bearing bruised
by cries of our children,
Or unceasing congestion of our lives going to-and-fro
upon some dubious freeway, or subways,
Some daily routes taken over and over
until the days look far too much the same.
At last, knocking on our midnight door, or at some unexpected,
ungodly hour, the Muse inquires
"Are you there? Lights are on -- Pray tell, is ANYONE home?"
When this Muse, this Art speaks, She's ventured a very long journey,
through decades of our betrayal to our innocence,
Veritable miles where She's tolerated our distractions
and our stresses, our wallets, our willful credit cards,
All our justifications
for earning a living instead of simply being
in the artful glory of this moment.
If at that exact moment we are not hospitable to Her, and fail
to invite Her in, to extract Her teacup of the most fragrant wisdom,
or exalted perfume, to brew and stew upon
some previously undefined essence of Her Being,
She shall depart.
Quickly.
Art is the music and muse of our eternal self,
which knows no hours
nor time as our predictable lives,
Our minutes beaten into fairly regular submission
asking for daily confessions of our belief.
It's just as doubtful that we'd give ART
our cell phone number,
Or an unmarked key
to a late-night motel
Off the beaten path.
It's been said that art is a jealous mistress, yet truly this misstates a deeper fount of truth.
It isn't art that we house in some hidden apartment on cushions, while by day we live in our
regular condo with our current wife and children.
Nor is it art that we meet clandestinely,
at the back booth of some smoky, candlelit cafe,
hoping, even praying, that no one we know
may see that we're having a fling with an illicit lover, after telling said wife or husband
that demands at the office require that we work quite late.
The Muse -- this ART of our deepest core of BEING --
is deceptively simple.
This Muse speaks without regard
to time and to space constraints.
She honors neither schedules, children, sleep,
nor time
as we know it.
Some say that SHE, the Muse, is impatient, or that She may even be jealous.
It's more that her voice
is a rare underground spring
coming up from some volcanic rock,
a cool bubbling essence
which has made its long journey through magma.
When Her voice is heard, it may well be that
She doesn't care
what we are doing,
For should we decide that the other activities
on our schedule are much more important,
She slips back into the shadow of the rock,
Taking her long
silken purple
cloak of secrets
with Her.
(Copyright 2001 by Darius Gottlieb - No reproduction without express permission from the author)
You're invited to visit Darius' website of his photographs at Art Bliss