fire is the only artist:
passion; the furnaces
of human affliction; the pain
at the heart of everything; desire
water is the only artist
shaping the long-standing stone;
the endless question; the slow loosening
of every human bond. silt.
spirit is the only artist: the changeable
weather we walk in; the night wind
straining against the wooden house
it blows over
into the earth, the only artist to resist
the potter’s pressure; is museum, prime matter and road;
the desert’s stubborn mother, and the body’s slack license
indifferent to Plato’s anguish.
and beyond
the imagination’s element and power
the only artist: silence