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
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...
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.
Her clothes might be torn by circumstance.
By seeming demands of our professions.
Her hair might be unbrushed. Her regal bearing bruised
by cries of our children,
by unceasing congestion of our lives going to-and-fro
upon some dubious freeways, or subways,
Some daily routes taken over and over
until the days look far too much the same.
How quickly She can transform the dust of feet trampling for countless miles
along a godforsaken road
to become, all at once, a healing balm,
Which heals and transforms
Every bloodied cut and wound...bless you, my Lady!
Knocking on our midnight door, tapping in
to the 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 an exceedingly long journey,
through decades of betrayal to our innocence,
Veritable miles where She's tolerated our distractions
and our stresses, our wallets, our willful credit cards,
Our justifications for earning a living
instead of nurturing a being
in the artful glory of this moment
And
If at that exact moment we are not hospitable to Her, and fail
to invite Her in, to extract Her teacup of 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,
Art asks only for daily confessions of our belief.
We make it dubious and doubtful that we'd give ART
our cell phone number,
Or an unmarked key to a late-night motel
Off the beaten path. Why the heaven not?
They claimed She'd become a zealous mistress, this ART,
yet truly this misstates a deeper fount of truth.
She's not jealous, just demanding.
It isn't art which we house in some hidden apartment on cushions,
while by day we live in our
regular condo with the 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
might recognize 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.
This Muse -- the ART at our deepest core of BEING --
is deceptively simple. She speaks without customary constraint.
She honors neither schedules, children, sleep,
nor time
as we know it.
Some say that the Muse is impatient.
It's more likely 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 the pretentious hell we are doing.
She may tell you why... Or may not.
Listen, for the whisper of wisdom
is rarely a shout, never requires the trumpets of headlines
or flags fluttering in the breeze.
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.
There is not even an echo of a good-bye
as we hold in hand
our schedules,
Our Palm Pilots
and all The Very Important Reasons For Our Being.
she has slipped away
(Copyright 2002 by Darius Gottlieb, - No reproduction without express permission from the author)
You're invited to visit Darius' website for more of his photographs and his music at Art Bliss
