Art in Motion

In a day and age of science, we still need the thrill of magic.  In a time of instant information, we still need the insight of story.   In a dawning of machines, we still must remember our roots.

This is a poem I wrote as a tribute to all of these entities.  A story of our roots, of nature, of magic.  I hoped it would inspire imagination.  Inspire that burning creativity, the child in all of us.  We grow up fast these days, a constant drip feed of view and culture fed to us through television.  We have ready access to most any question we can ask with a host of answers on every end of the spectrum available to us in cyber space.  The mystery of “The Big Wild,” grows smaller in our hearts, yet is not forgotten.  As we wake in the early morning light you can still feel this pulse, that question Google can’t answer, for it’s a question without words.  This nameless enigma that burrows deep into our hearts, and like a gentle wind, whispers  at the embers of our spirit, igniting something deep; only to be set aside with the coming of day.  We all have these moments, time and again; a reminder of this endless mystery, the playground of our birth right.  We can call to this riddle; fill our spirit with the momentum of the plunge we take into the unknown; fill our minds with the intricacy of this puzzle, and fill our hearts with the beauty of this moving mandala of life and color.

All we need is a dream, the canvas of our being…and a paintbrush from the world.

This paintbrush came from the sea,

Fashioned in the depths of dreams and belief,

Lines of blue that drew out the sky,

Waves that passed by and by…

In it was the trees, the leaves and the land,

The art of all of nature blossomed in its hand.

Creation fixated down and into a point…

This divine imagination for the universe to exploit.

Valleys dug deep by rivers that creep,

Mountains shattered by the wind into peaks.

And then a beat of warmth, as life stirred in its first chest,

The heart given as a gift to commune with on this quest

Beauty turned to passion in the eyes of its beholders,

And a grace called love was brought into order.

But lines became thin with complexity when man came to be,

No color could match the fate only art could see…

It was a girl who found this paintbrush, laying in the sand,

In it, the history of understanding, since the dawn of man.

With one stroke she could paint the clouds in every shape!

Paint every face of every creature and every trait…

Her design was in constant motion, at wim of the emotion,

An inspiration of all, deeper then any ocean.

She danced and she sang and she positioned the stars,

Running down the beach with delight as she created a barge.

The ship came to a stop at her feet, and she nearly floated on board,

Then set sail away from the mainland and off into a storm.

She created dolphins and mermaids and whatever came to her mind,

As she steered the ship straight and true, leaving everything else behind.

Her hair became wild, like a vibrant flower meadow,

And her skin turned to light as her laughter continued to echo.

Deep out at sea her ship was split by lightning,

Passion had swelled the seas into a beauty so dark and terrifying.

Fear showed its face as her vessel began to sink,

So she painted a smile on fear and blew a kiss with a wink

In her eyes the moon was born as she remembered a boy she once knew,

And it was the image of his eyes, that sank down with her into the blue.

She sank down deep until she was at the depth of all belief,

Where the paintbrush had been forged and where it now would sleep.

But the girl had changed, and could no longer go home,

And she exhaled her love for the boy, and cradled her arms around her bones.

Now the boy could see this girl, in the mountains and trees and rivers.

In the stars above the fire, amongst the woods and all its critters.

Beyond valleys that vein there way through the beautiful bodies of land,

All the way within the flesh and blood that made him a man,

The girl had chosen, for this path was fated to be,

 

Thus mother nature was born, painting out our world with a paintbrush from the sea.