I Go Back To The House For A Book
I turn around on the gravel
and go back to the house for a book,
something to read at the doctor's office,
and while I am inside, running the finger
of inquisition along a shelf,
another me that did not bother
to go back to the house for a book
heads out on his own,
rolls down the driveway,
and swings left toward town,
a ghost in his ghost car,
another knot in the string of time,
a good three minutes ahead of me —
a spacing that will now continue
for the rest of my life.
Sometimes I think I see him
a few people in front of me on a line
or getting up from a table
to leave the restaurant just before I do,
slipping into his coat on the way out the door.
But there is no catching him,
no way to slow him down
and put us back in synch,
unless one day he decides to go back
to the house for something,
but I cannot imagine
for the life of me what that might be.
He is out there always before me,
blazing my trail, invisible scout,
hound that pulls me along,
shade I am doomed to follow,
my perfect double,
only bumped an inch into the future,
and not nearly as well-versed as I
in the love poems of Ovid —
I who went back to the house
that fateful winter morning and got the book.
Billy Collins
Now I’m not an artist, but I think I’ve come to appreciate art for what it is when I recognize it. This is largely due to how my mind works, but I do have to give a small amount of credit to my art appreciation class. It’s the one class I ever feel asleep in while I was writing. I spent a large amount of time studying the professor’s facial features and considering how much she reminded me of a bird, a raven in particular. Then I would think about good ol’ Edgar Allen Poe and it was all downhill from there. But, one thing I do remember learning about is the medium. It’s what the artist chooses to create with. It’s usually written right below the title of the art: Pencil on paper, tempura on board, Ink on bamboo, just pick your poison. It establishes that what you are looking at is a representation of something through some other means. It’s a kiss, but its oil and gold leaf on a canvas. It’s a pipe, but it is not a pipe. Understand? I feel like I project most of my life through a medium, especially my words. I paint them with figurative language. Metaphors on Journal pages. Analogies over coffee tables. They are creative, and they take more time, and they are beautiful, but I’ve forgotten to process what is real first. I’ve only looked at the subject through the lens. I haven’t seen it with my naked eye. I haven’t walked around it, found its best angle, or revealed what is beneath its shadows with different types of light. I will compare my current situation to a hatching butterfly, but I won’t tell you I feel like I’m growing into myself. I’ll tell you I feel like fall leaves, but I won’t tell you I feel unstable. Because I think about the fall leaves and butterfly before I even realize I am growing and unstable. I fool myself into thinking I’m writing and talking about someone else. I need to put down the camera, the paintbrush, the pen, the words, and look at what is. I think that might be what makes a good artist, to understand before you create, and maybe to understand that you’ll always be recreating.
