Portrait of an Empty Chair

"Art is the unceasing effort to compete with the beauty of flowers and never succeeding."

--Marc Chagall

Brush, paint,

the welling light,

void canvas-space to fill.

It doesn’t matter what it is or what the means that sent it,

sweet longing at the heart of things, to be represented.

Subject: chair,

empty, bare potential.

Study of negative space.

Drop differences with matter and so work into its core,

the double-dealing Being that is with itself at war.

Begin. Mistake.

Continue. New mistake.

Get it right someday…

It’s play that makes it joyful and it’s love that makes it good,

the perfect imperfection of what goes misunderstood.

Chair portrait?

What a waste!

Who would ever bother…

Tickle at the canvas like a finger to the ribs,

the laughing little shock that’s working through the paintbrush nibs.

Suggest perspective.

Illusion of depth.

Marvelous trick, you know?

To better serve what’s beautiful and better know what’s true,

it’s only in the making that the soul finds what to do.