The question of whether life follows art or art life is a moot question. They should go hand in hand. As an aging poet, I reject the idea that my poetry might mean more when I'm gone than it does while I am here. I think poets of the past (best kept secret) wrote for posterity. But we need to be in life, living the best life we can, right now, being accountable and lucid, paying attention to our dreams, and our metaphors (!), eating well, drinking plenty of good water, getting all the sleep our bodies require, caring for the earth, our home. Our bodies are quantum fusions of physical and spiritual elements that come with a history and a purpose that we give names to, like mind and brain and heart and soul and spirit and conscience but the reality is indescribable. Life is indescribable. If we try to define what we are and what life is, we are only fooling ourselves. So we write poems, make art, dance, produce films, make love, to try to glimpse what's going on for us, because of course, being mortals we struggle. At our worst we are riders on a train heading we-know-not-where, looking out of a rain-smeared window at the passing world, and at our best we are lucid journeyers, gypsies traveling light from place to place telling stories around a fire, enjoying each other's company, dancing and singing and occasionally shouting to the stars. But if we are not taking care of ourselves, I see that as a tragic mistake, because it really isn't about us, but the gifts we embody. It is about nurturing those gifts which ultimately define us.
(Article changed on March 20, 2019 at 21:47)
(Article changed on March 22, 2019 at 19:59)