another story

There's nothing out there but light,
                                                            the would-be artist said,
As usual just half right:
There's also a touch of darkness, everyone knows, on both sides of both horizons,
Prescribed and unpaintable,
Touching our fingertips whichever way we decide to jump.
His small palette, however, won't hold that color,
                                            though some have, and some still do.

The two plum trees know nothing of that,
Having come to their green grief,
                                                    their terrestrial touch-and-go,
Out of grace and radiance,
Their altered bodies alteration transmogrified.
Mine is a brief voice, a still, brief voice
Unsubject to change or the will to change—
                                            might it be restrung and rearranged.

But that is another story.

-- Charles Wright, from 'Lives of the Artists'

Charles Wright