THE THREAD | The hook that everything hangs on
THE HOOK THAT EVERYTHING HANGS ON
(after Anselm Keifer’s Lichtfalle)
The universe is much too tall.
It is as tall as it is wide, thick as it is deep.
It takes up perhaps a bit too much space.
It just throws its weight around the room
like it owns the place.
It moves mostly at a slow pace,
but here and there, such fast bright flashes!
The universe, as they say, it is what it is.
A composer might try to capture the sound that is not made,
or hear a faint sound and know it cannot be captured
but will sing anyway.
A painter, brush in hand, will stand before a canvas,
scan and search the sky for some inkling of semblance and,
finding none, will pointillate a thousand suns
and call it good.
The wise ones will come along and say the sound is Om or Amen.
The sensible ones will insist the semblance
is as obvious as Orion’s belt.
The intelligent ones stand back in their objectivity
to mull and brood and object.
Only the fools will fall.
Only the fools will fall deep into the dark quiet.
Only the fools will find themselves and forget themselves,
forget themselves and find themselves falling.
Only the fools will fall into, what — what is this?
It is what it is, and whatever it is,
it might draw them toward some black inescapable weight.
It might crush and annihilate them.
It might make new miseries for them, or them of it.
But the lucky ones, these blessed fools,
they find their way back to themselves,
they find the edges, the borders, the boundaries, the frame,
they find this image set against a somehow more expansive plane.
They look up and see the hook that everything hangs on.
They look. See. It is a work of art, after all.
Just a work of art.
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What I'm reading: Wallace Stegner's Crossing to Safety, Landon Porter's Whiskey & Cash
What I'm listening to: Natalie Hemby's Pins and Needles
What I'm hoping y'all get tickets for before they're gone: Party Like It's 1996
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Hey, get out there and have a great day,
Andrew