Friday, November 15, 2019

A PAINTING IS A PAINTING

A painting is a painting
It’s not like you or me
Nobody gets older  
No one ever sleeps. 

It’s a stillness made of life
With meaning in its air
You feel it as you watch it,
Even as you stare:

At those forever praying
Or lying nude aware
Not of us but God
And the artist never there.

We travel time to then
And then to us appears;
Time becomes transparent
And what is far comes near. 

Who gave their life to painting
That we can know life more?
The artist in his garret?
The model in her maze?

We think of things self-evident
When we observe those lives
Frozen in the minerals
Of pigments and the mind

But what of art’s intention?
Does it think or know the way?
The artist isn’t talking;
There’s nothing more to say. 

Who made a painting matter
Then vanished long ago?
Who gave their life to painting
So we enjoy life more?


John Sevcik