The Most Beautiful Art

The most beautiful art, it seems to me, comes from pain. I certainly do my best writing when I am unhappy. I know this is true for many. I wonder why it is harder to write from joy? I've never been able to do it well. Everything I write from joy sounds trite and cheesy. Some might say everything I write sounds trite and cheesy, but I think they'd be wrong about that. LOL

Of course Ode to Joy is in direct opposition to what I wrote above. Maybe it is just the people like myself - rather inexperienced artists - find pain easier to express artistically. In the end, all I know is what works for me.



Release

I sit on stone beside the river.
Leaves of Willow and Birch surround.
A death shroud most fitting.

Anguish crashes against stone
like the river’s din.
Relentless, neither yielding

I come for healing, unsure if even this place
is strong enough for the task. I examine the
shards of a shattered life, seeking a lesson.

Here, the familial love withdrawn in shades of racism.
There, the job precariously balanced due to your position.
Another, my wild nature tamed by your children, half grown.
I sacrificed all of importance and laid myself bleeding and empty
in supplication at your feet to acquire a gem far more precious:
Us.

The rush of the river drowns the sounds of a life crushed
to hear your whispers. The relentless sound as the glass
settles into its heap beside me. Echoed mercilessly through
the dead telephone line, the last I heard from you.

My breath gone, my tears gone, the clamor of water’s rush fills me anew.
Freedom comes in realization: none of the past can be reclaimed.
I let the river sweep the glass downstream I want no part of it.
Instead I gather clay.
My life starts here.

Joni
November 4, 2004

Alex

I have a friend named Alex that I met this past May. The moment we met there was a spark of recognition, of kindred, that was unmistakeable even upon the first words from his mouth. We have spent only a few hours in each other's presence, and yet I've found there is a commonality between us that is uncommon. I have my dear friend Joseph to thank for our introduction. My friendship with Joseph is even more uncommon and uncanny, but I won't go into that now.

As I knew I would in that first moment, I have since found much in common with Alex and we have shared some wonderful discussions regarding some very deeply held beliefs and ideas regarding the world and ourselves. I bring all this up about him today, because it was he that I thought of when the first frayed thread of this poem came through. At the time I didn't even recognize there was a poem in it. Only after the second thread came through, did I realize this was a poem and I knew that it was for Alex. So, Alex, this poem is for you.



Women I’ve Known
For Alex

She stands by a bridge abutment
drinking in sunlight on the road
to Las Vegas. I left her there, so
she might forever live on the edge
of adventure. She is anticipation.

Another eternally ferries a stormy
sea hoping the clinging salt will
bridge impossible love. I left her
there to find her love and lover.
She is full of pain and torment.

A third sits infused in pine straw
scent from the forest around her,
learning of her own divinity for
the first time this life. I left her
there to become her own perfection.

The last is walking through a foreign
land. Well beyond her own comfort.
I left her there for distant tongues
to drive further into a knowledge
of her mind, her spirit, her courage.

I have sent many women out into the world.
Pieces of myself, frozen in ambered time.
It seems in these later years I gather them
again like buoys through my uncharted course,
so they might remind me of who I really am.

Joni
10/14/06