a gift

every so often, i'll be sent something, an email, a pic on my phone,
what have you, from someone who, for whatever reason, thought of me
when they first saw that something. i'll admit, it's nice to be
thought of. it's nice to be reminded from time to time that people do
know me pretty well, and that as often as i feel it, i'm not really
all alone. yesterday, a friend of mine sent me this.

the artist

a dream and a fire which i cannot control, driving me without those
comfortable smooth paths of solidity and sleep which nature has
decreed for man. a fire which i inherited willy nilly, and which i
must needs feed with talk and youth and the very vessel which bears
the fire: the serpent which consumes its own kind, knowing that i can
never give to the world that which is crying in me to be freed.

for where is that flesh, what hand holds that blood to shape this
dream within me in marble or sound, on canvas or paper, and live? i,
too, am but a shapeless lump of moist earth risen from pain, to laugh
and strive and weep, knowing no peace until the moisture has gone out
of it, and it is once more of the original and eternal dust.

but to create! which among ye who have not this fire, can know this
joy, let it be ever so fleet? -william faulkner

that's beautiful. and true.

ghost