The Mystery of Art

A poem in response to Tweetspeak Poetry’s Book Club discussion of
The Artist’s Way, (Introduction through Week 1: Recovering a Sense
of Safety). The bolded lines are author and artist Julia Cameron’s words.
The rest are mine.

As we are creative beings, our lives become our work of art. (p. xxvi)

So I search for words
In the crinkle of newspaper
Igniting pinecones into
Flame

Blue-white wisps coaxed to
Dance

In swirling orange
Skirts
Wide in the wind

Art is born in attention. Its midwife is detail. (p. 21)

And I listen for words
In the sizzle of chicken,
The chopping of carrots,
The simmering of stock
For soup

Waiting for them to
Rise with the dough,
Steep with the tea,

Crumble
A bumper crop of
Cones
Into ash

…the singular image is what haunts us and becomes art (p. 21)

Tiny golden flecks
Glinting in
Green eyes

Soft spring rain
Nourishing tender
Roots
One fat drop
At a time

Ideas, like
Heat-cracked crusts,
Cooling on the counter,
Steam rising

The artist brain is
• sight and sound, smell and taste, touch (p. 21)
• sensual, a language of felt experience (p. 21)
• reached through rhythm – through rhyme, not reason (p. 21)
• triggered by images (p. 23)

Seeking art in every breath,
Swallow
Action

Cotton floating soft
Against bare skin

Vapors of
Heat rising
Hypnotic,
Altering the way we
See

Words pouring
Across days
Like slow molasses

Flitting in,
Swooping out

As we blink
Capture
Recognize
Record

Become the art

Noticing
Seeking

Because creativity
Is not
A luxury

But inherently
Who we are

Fearfully and
Wonderfully
Made

By Him who
Spun the cosmos
And separated the seas

Who,
In mystery,
Created

You and me.

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