What
Wild
  Hope
I have lingered, long and lovingly, in a
labyrinth of my own making, and emerged
to find the world still beautiful but changed.
Music has fled, along with the Tutelary
Spirit; in his place a dark daimon ascends,
beckoning toward that world-womb we
were wrenched from in the primordial /
cyclic catastrophe of spring.  A violent
conflict awaits us in the end, against an
unimaginable foe, with no parent,
kindergarten teacher or police to intervene,
and we are but ill prepared in a world that
shields us from death and  makes of aging
an unforgivable sin.  
But to paint,  like a child, like a primitive, in
response to unconscious impulses,
unencumbered by style or technique, to
paint feverishly, compulsively, elatedly, is a
way to explore both creation and
destruction, order as well as chaos.  For art
synthesizes where words dichotomize so
that, behind these vibrant forms lurks
infinite paradise / dark nothing, while these
colors, blossoming from and being sucked
back into the swirling void, are ultimately
one with the void, and that monster daimon
I must confront may be my truest self.