Artists of all kinds are often accused of prettifying the world, cleaning up its faults and scars to make an artificial beauty. But the opposite is more often true. What the world presents, what nature does of its own accord surpasses our ability to depict. That is why we keep editing, revising, overpainting, reframing, chipping away at our offerings to make them as worthy of regard as the ordinary furnishings of life.
The Elusive Familiar
The woods are all pen-and-ink, each black limb
limned with unstained snow. Would that my own
pen could pen woods so fragile, so simple, so true.
This out-the-window world defies my reach
to render into speech. I can only point, and rue —
can only say “Look. Have you ever seen such light?”
Note: unpublished draft
