#art

The Poem

Everything is happening at once.

The blimp goes where it goes.The swimmers have taken to the skybecause the sky needed swimmingand someone had to.

The man in the suit is lying in the field —the specific posture of someonefor whom the standing up has gone on long enough.

The cowboy moves through the middle distancewithout explanation.The Corvette goes nowhere at speed.This is called the culture economy.This is called Tuesday.

The painting on the easel is small.Nobody commissioned it.Nobody assigned it an altitudeor drove it somewhere fastor fell down next to it in a good suit.It is simply there —geometric, quiet, primary —standing in the fieldwhile everything else falls or flies or drives —not explaining itself,not performing itself,not asking to be understood before it is felt.

Still on the easel

This is what art was.This is what art is.This is what art will bewhen the blimp has goneand the man has gotten up and brushed himself offand the Corvette has finally arrivedwherever it was going so urgently.

The woman in blue is not reacting.She has seen all of it.She has her arms folded and her jaw setand she is standing verticalin the middle of the destruction of the beautiful —making the thing that outlasts the doing of it.She is always making the thing.

The swimmers are not fleeing.They are not falling.They are diving into the pink bandwith the form and commitment of peoplewho decided that if the sky is going to be this colorsomeone should swim in it —that beauty doesn’t ask permissionfrom the economyor the Tuesday that keeps arrivingwith its arms full of everything at once —

Into the pink band

beauty just opensand someone dives inand that is the whole argument,that is the whole practice,that is the whole reasonthe painting is still on the easel.

#art.Not irony. Not surrender.The only word that fitswhen everything is happening at onceand the sky is that colorand the swimmers are already in itand you are still in the fieldwith your arms folded

making the next thing
anyway.