An Artist's World

An Artist’s World Looking at the canvas I cannot see the pure white of the fibers What is there hidden in the plainness? Others will never see what I see If I could see anything at all The paints sit still as beads of glass The brushes look like grasses blowing in a prairie wind Even the smell of the turpentine seems dry This is the world of the artist Barren and lifeless until a single moment comes A moment of clarity only they can feel A vision that becomes revealed in a flash A word or musical lyric that becomes its own world A painting is created A world is born from the bleakness of reality Mountains, valleys and storm clouds fill the same canvas Birds fly through the unseen air While flowers cover a grassy hillside The blank white canvas is long gone Replaced by a paradise of the artist’s creation And the real world is given another picture of beauty