Two Paintings

I.

It turned out that the world had changed, and despite
the uproars several cycles ago, we didn’t 
seem to see it coming. Oh well. 
The forms still seem to stretch and commingle, 
abundant sitting places for various songbird
and rodent being provided in a threshold 
for spiritual nourishment and ascendant transformation. 

So much for the wayfarers. We had thought, 
for sure, they’d be the ones to build
the Holy Land and hold it right there. But the more 
their children had children who went to school, 
and the more they watched television and were handed 
tablet devices, the more all manner of concentration began to become 
an issue – to hold meant to congeal, and in an attempt to congeal, 
we concretized, desperate, and in need 
of reinforcement. 

All the Madonnas and Marys were gone. 
The Hollies and Victorias and Graces. It was no surprise 
that Jims and Jacks weren't up to the task, 
but we certainly knew that Haleys and Madisons
couldn't tell what from what and we didn't at all 
know what to do with the Jordans, let alone 
the Tophers. All the people prattling 
about Modernity had ways of taking this apart
and putting it back together again. All amounted 
to some configuration of parts, conflagrations 
of theory and folk psychology writ psuedo-academic, 
but everyone knew that there was a world and, 
if we kept on this way, we were never going to see it, 
let alone participate in it. 

So we took whatever little material we had at hand, 
went to the workshop, and started 
putting things together as best we could. 

II. 

Nothing is identical. 
The memory is not
the real thing, nor
is the reflection. 

Nevertheless we repeat. Create
replications and sequels. 
Over and over, in the same way
seeds of the same species split, 
birthing new trees of similar structure
and hue. Landscapes emerge and,
as we walk and walk again, we see
repetitions in the finite mind 
of the infinite pattern of the unremarkable, 
which is perhaps the most important
of all of the stately structures we encounter. 

Text within this block will maintain
its original spacing when published. And you 
and I will maintain ours, as well. 
Songs will be sung, and choruses
repeated as covers emerge. That
which is most popular is that
which is most redundant, but not 
for want of originality. Instead, 
we tend to find the most unique expressions
in the derivatives, the only substances
which can truly hold the content, 
vacant as a shell must be
to house protectively that which is essential. 

A life lived, or two or twenty. Insignificant
each, yet the only figures on which we can 
experience consciousness, the one mystery
still worth saving.