Art in Anxious Time

 

I’m anxious and it’s

hard to write

 

art expressed in pain:

I don’t know how

those artists do it

 

maybe it’s big fear

and nihilistic agony

that keeps them

going, that prompts

expression that might

change the world

and everything

beyond

 

the gardeners at

Hiroshima and

Nagasaki must

accomplish this

 

I have small pains

and many things that

trouble me—yes,

sometimes they are

bad as in raw—

unformed, unfixed,

 

though I think the

only one that might

be changed through

treating these in art

is me

 

still, through all

the small-town

clay-house conflicts

I might strive to

express something

new

 

something that might

relate to you

 

 

 

(the teacher and good

sport in me should tell

you that clay house

is a Puritan metaphor)