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