Just carve

Sally paints, I carve. But of what? And, why?

Hard questions to answer even though we both constantly pursue answers.

Speaking for myself, I suppose that, if anything, I am trying to make visible the numinous quality of nature; at least give hints of it. But it is so complex that I sometimes tire of asking the questions. What helps, though, is thumbing through the well worn pages of any of my poet’s books. Today, it’s Rilke.

Wir durfen dich nicht eigenmachtig malen

We must not portray you in king’s robes,
you drifting mist that brought forth the morning.

Once again from the old paintboxes
we take the same gold for scepter and crown
that has disguised you through the ages.

Piously we produce our images of you
till they stand around you like a thousand walls.
And when our hearts would simply open,
our fervent hands hide you.

Rilke “Book of Hours: Love Poems to God” (translation: Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy).

Writing in Germany about the Italian artists, Rilke also said:

Ich habe viele Bruder in Sutanen

I have many brothers in the South
who move, handsome in their vestments,
through cloister gardens.
The Madonnas they make are so human,
and I dream often of their Titians,
where God becomes an ardent flame.

But when I lean over the chasm of myself —
it seems
my God is dark
and like a web: a hundred roots
silently drinking.

This is the ferment I grow out of.

More I don’t know, because my branches
rest in deep silence, stirred only by the wind.

Just maybe I shouldn’t spend so much time trying to figure things out. Just maybe I should just keep carving and let what flows out of my hands speak what needs to be spoken.

I live my life in widening circles
that reach out across the world.
I may not complete this last one
but I give myself to it.

I circle around God, around the primordial tower.
I’ve been circling for thousands of years
and I still don’t know: am I a falcon,
a storm, or a great song?