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Spring Awakening I've gone there, and now, I'm back again. A blank page can be a terrifically daunting obstacle. I've an overwhelming desire to write, To attempt to capture, to express The beauty which constantly surrounds me Of this world with which I am become so passionately enamoured. My current position seems most apt, Reclining in an old plush chair In a darkened corner of a library, In a room whose singular beauty I never before noticed, Its ornately-sculpted ceiling, The common college-green carpet, Rows upon rows of faded volumes And the intrigue of the walkway halfway up the east wall Inaccessible with its ornamented iron railing and hidden doors (I must cast off self-consciousness At the gaskishness of my ill-fitting words, Too broad at the shoulders, too long in the sleeves; My hand will, once again, grow to fit their use.) I stare out onto a lush spring courtyard, Struck by the brightness, the comfort of it all, Aware that only from here may I observe. Were I, like Wordsworth (or any of the countless others who have done before), To go out, I should be distracted, Engulfed by the very air, made mute. So I retain my place here in the shadows Which I fled some years ago, Seduced by the same sun, Led into the shining sky, Embarked upon a journey toward Experience, And to which I long to return, To pass my days and nights in reading, processing, digestion, Amassing learning of another sort. And now, contemplating a page no longer so empty, Yet somehow still daunting. Is this the post, the duty of the artist? In an environment which enables the denial of one's whereabouts, To observe, to record, to comment? And to what use? Is this mere vain self-indulgence? Hedonism without pleasure? (Can self-satisfaction, self-deprecation be counted pleasure? Why are these all so unkempt, With fear in their eyes, So drawn, bowed, bent?) I travel less than I wander. It is not Romantic. One finds life in the strangest places.
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