Another personal piece! I’ve had this in mind for over a year, so it was an honor to have Sixfootant (Twitter / Website) paint it into being. I also spent a lot of time writing a rather lengthy piece of poetry inspired by the art (and rooted in the feelings behind both). Subject to minor changes as always, but I believe it’s at a point where I’m content.
Time and Chance
“If your eyes are set on the mount’s peak
With nose to the grindstone
You’ll merit what you seek”
A summit of my own
Rising above the sea
Atop Ararat, I can be free
“If your legs grow weary and knees creak
With hands raw to the bone
Know the blessed are meek”
The Lady from Her throne
Pointed down to the stream
So I waded in the twilight gleam
“Close to the surface, boughs bob and sway
See how the fruit hangs low
Labor painted the way”
I swam to their rainbow
These orchard colonnades
Assure my future harvest in spades
But the Gatherer came in dissent
His face creased from lament
Finger trained to gray skies
“Certainty’s a fool’s trance
If you’re humble and wise
You’d bow afore meeting time and chance”
I swam by and rose to land headstrong
But clouds cast shadows long
Then heard Him from behind
“Pity for the naive!
Fortune’s favor is blind
Her scales are faulty and oft deceive”
On I marched, mute in disturbed belief
Then I shook as a leaf
When the heavens opened
The world engulfed by fog
Every way a dead end
The ground I trod suddenly a bog
“The path to Zion has been lost to sight!
I kept on clear and straight
And did everything right!”
Then I slipped on slick slate
Felled by the tempest’s ire
Despondence pulled me down to the mire
“She swore the upright receive their share
Earned from sweat by my brow
There’s no such thing as fair
The dreams we sow and plow
Deferred despite it all
He knew we’re thralls at fate’s beck and call”
… Then I saw two come forth from the mist
“Life may throw your designs to the air”
The Gatherer avowed
“But Our King hears your prayer”
The Lady softly vowed
They stooped low and reached out
“Let us bear you on hope to the route”