we are the builders of layers
we are the chasers of gold
silent and watchful
purveyors of stories that cannot be told
time-losers
logic-betrayers
where the canvas is heavy and bold
yet...we are the sovereign assayers
of the beauty
the shadows withhold
with sweeping and vibrant slashes
we summon the lightning flashes
out of a palette’s bleeding
we picture a world receding
one hand with a knife...at leisure
shall pull out a mountain of green
and thee
with a textured measure
can alter the whole of the scene
we...in the studios bending
lost in the blank of the sky
mixed all the colors
...descending
watched how the daylight would die
and captured the darkness transcending
to trick the unnoticing eye
for each stroke is a sorrow unending
or a truth that is waiting to lie
a stroke of our deep invention
will capture the world's attention
a marvelous feat
of our scraping the form of the forest
escaping the river
the wood
and the bower
are tangled together in space
till our hands shall relinquish their power
and the texture is locked in its place
they had no color remaining
of the stormy skies they are feigning
they had no profound overseeing
the luminous worlds they are freeing
but on one bright edge
...it has rested
a pigment that will not decay
the shadows the knife has arrested
will carry the warmth of the day
and therefore...
the canvas is waking
with the beautiful shapes we are making
the multitudes are united
in the warmth of a fire we lighted
scorning the modern obsession
are coming to find
as they trace in the world
for its starkest expression
the beauty we left on its face
but we...with our scraping
and sweeping deliberate
patient
slow
the mountains about us are keeping
the secrets we paint in their glow
our minds with the imagery leaping
o world!
it must ever be so that we dwell
in our scraping and sweeping
a little apart from below
for we are afar with the waking
the skies that are vivid
and new
and out of the dawn we are making
a masterpiece born of the dew
how...spite of the critics forsaking
once more the horizon breaks through
already the structure is taking
the shape of a marvelous view
great hail!
we cry to the givers
from the edge of the absolute light
bring us hither
your forests and rivers
and banish the gray of the night
you shall teach us how beauty delivers
the hues that are heavy and bright
yea...in spite of a brush that now shivers
and a canvas consumed by the
