save the artist, save the world 1

As Once The Winged Energy of Delight
As once the winged energy of delight
Carried you over childhood’s dark abysses
Now beyond your own life built the great
Arch of unimagined bridges.

Wonders happen if we can succeed
In passing through the harshest danger:
But only in a bright and purely granted
Achievement can we realize the wonder.

To work with Things in the indescribable
Relationship is not too hard for us:
The pattern grows more intricate and subtle,
And being swept along is not enough.

Take your practiced powers and stretch them out
Until they span the chasm between two
Contradictions... For the god wants to know himself in you.
Rilke

I first read this poem for one of Dr. Marge Evasco’s literature classes. It has remained one of my favourites and fortifies me somehow when I feel like submitting to the cold metal cogs that turn this world.

“For the god wants to know himself in you.” I love that line. If there is something that I believe we have in common with God or however you want to describe the “master of the universe”, it is that we are also creators. It is sad to see creative pursuits relegated to the dark and mouldy sidelines in favour of technology and money. John Steinbeck once said that he wrote to try to remind people of their humanity. I think that’s what artists do, and I think that’s why we have to treasure those people who try to open us to new ways of seeing, imagining and being. The people who watch and observe and for whom the truth is sacred. The people who try to remind us that life in this world is terrifying, absurd, ugly, beautiful. People whose work slaps us in the face and then comforts us. People who create worlds out of whispers and colours and lines.
I can’t believe that some divine power would create us just to work 9 to 5 and to make as much money as possible.