Much splendor
has this earthen realm, her timeless grandeur she reveals,
Eternal as the
endless sea, or passing like a soft caress.
‘Tis the artist
that will seize this truth, and adds to it just what he feels,
Bound by
instinct to this task, he naturally can do no less.
To perceive the
beauty in our lives, and capture it before it’s gone,
This is the
artist’s daily task, that hinders him into the night,
The longing in a
woman's glance, the fragile fleeting light of dawn,
Are what his
gaping senses grasp, and tussle at his minds delight.
To extract
exciting brilliance from the barren and the base,
This is the work
the artist does, with vision, sweat and skill,
He will carve a
slice of splendor from a dark and empty place,
With only his
imagination and the force of his own will.
For it is the
artist’s burden to conceive and to create,
To see where
beauty could be, and to craft with his own hand,
To paint upon
each canvas and to carve upon each slate,
To cast far his
dreams of wonder and to see where they may land.
The compensation
that the artist gets, to many must seem nil,
His work
routinely unrewarded, put upon a lonely shelf,
Yet he continues
in his labors…content, steadfast and still,
For the true
reward an artist gets comes from within himself.
© John Greenwood 2007