A Greater Art                                                     


            When they emerged, the flames,
            As I was sure they would
            From their drought-loosened stranglehold,
            It was changing light I sought

            Smoke reached us across the valley
            And I gazed at the ridge
            Where it sliced along the belly of the sky,
            Where the colours I had yearned to discover
            Spilled and rioted

            At last the complexity of trees gave way
            And from this silencing 
            A darker clearer line,
            The bold stroke of a brush,
            The edge of a wall about to buckle

            At home I assembled the pigments
            But nothing much came,
            Eager and exultant as I was,
            Sure of a virgin eye,
            Because walls were much on my mind

            The familiar ones at least,
            Of riches, faith and love, 
            The common barricades 
            Against that blackest certain fire

            It seems so useless now, the work of
            Capture, mimicry, approximation –
            So obsolete

            And even your arms,
            Forgive my falling out of them
            And into a greater art


            ________________________________________________________________________


            Emanuel E. García, 2014

          see here for 'visual accompaniment'