Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow—
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream:
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.

I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand—
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep
While I weep—while I weep!
O God! can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?

Hidden in the cleft
among stubborn stones
wherever
water flows willingly
Relief follows

Art is working within a frame. Knowing and exploring that frame, using contrast, drawing attention across the field.

It’s an extension of language. Which is metaphor. The default art of language is the frame we operate from within. The words we collect along the way, to place along the veritable canvas of open air.

You need the frame to create context, but it’s also limiting. And it’s only when we understand where our context collides with other broader or more pervasive contexts that we can reconstruct our frame. Transcend it, and paint a newer, more comprehensive picture within a newer, more robust, frame.

So how big should your canvas be. Smaller frames require concision. Bigger frames allow more expansive exploration.

One would think, by those descriptions alone that a larger canvas is better, but it also requires more discipline. We can easily lose ourselves in the expanse and be left with nothing but irreducible chaos. Jungle. Space. Ocean. Not because these expanses are truly irreducible, but because we haven’t developed enough to place any kind of conceptual frame around them. We can’t place them into a useful metaphorical context, besides pointing into the void and reveling in its mystery.  Dreaming up monsters or messiahs that only reflect our fears and ignorance.

But this isn’t a canvas it’s a concept  and it’s hopefully a clear description of why overconfidence in our understanding can lead us to creating a frame larger than we can effectively navigate. Painting ourselves into the void, swallowed by reflections of our own shortcomings.

It’s not pessimism.

Each person is a natural artist gifted with the capacity for communication and supreme adaptation. Very fortuitous developments compared to say; ******* ants out of a tunnel with an incredibly well adapted snout, or establishing mate worthy dominance by bludgeoning a competing male with large outcroppings of bone. Music, written word, spoken language these are the result of our creativity. Our propensity to shift the scope of our picture. Capture understanding from depth by reducing it.

Language only has the frames we construct within it. We must place the borders around our picture somewhere, and playing within each arbitrary space is what creativity is. The self limited but transcendental use of ones space or time.

Once upon a time  in a far away land
Of silken air and fragrant flowers
There lived a spirit bird with golden wings.
The song it sang was dragonflies
And dew drops on white lilies.

It flew in swooping arcs of joy
And floated on the crystal waters
Dreaming dreams of fleecy purple clouds
And meadows filled with poppies
Blooming in the morning sun.

In this land the air was still
And crisp as a fresh picked apple.
No wayward breeze disturbed the calm
Or rustled through the lacy trees
To blur the whispers of serenity.

The bird felt subtle longings for
Another time, another place
It knew it did not want to go.
A place of harsh realty
And ugly opportunities

Where nothing worked the way it should
And people failed on every hand
For only trying to exist.
There was no music, only growls
And the air was thick with worry.

Fighting back the urge to go
And try to somehow make things better
The mystic bird with gilded wings
Found it could no longer fly
And so the choice had been made for it

To stay among the music and the flowers,
In the golden summer light of yesterday.
             ljm

I designed and built this valley mansion
   obscuring a view of the mountains -
A magnificent multi-storied structure
   with many rooms dimly lit or darkened,
A few rooms admitting a minimum
   of filtered starlight.

In one room only
   is there occasionally
   direct blazing sunlight
And this is the room of longing.



- fr

Quiet prayers
sheltered within
candlelight  




- fr