The Originals
We create and re-create
We must do this,
I think
The way animals return
To reproduce
It’s close work and
Intimate
Actions in a studio
Or on the line
What might tragedy encourage
Into making
Or a comedy?
I’m not saying it’s a law
It’s not
Sometimes a commission
Even patronage
Sometimes, though, merely
A happy accident,
As is said but really happens
Call it invention
Or an invention
Making and remaking
What is made a complement
And compliment
To a living and a breathing
Sometimes fierce, sometimes
Fanciful
Planet Earth
With places in the cosmos
When we’re ready
Though we’ll probably
Leave too soon
To find the faces
That have been
Quietly challenging
Wizening with age
Maybe waiting
For the far more mortal
Upstart young
To launch
To find our way to you
C L Couch
“Painting the Summer”
clcouch123 
June 20, 2020 at 7:20 pm
Very nicely done! Sometimes those happy accidents become masterpieces!!
June 20, 2020 at 7:22 pm
Thank you! Yes, they do!
June 21, 2020 at 9:03 am
It’s a sort of restlessness that makes us do it, not the commissions, they’re just for survival, but the urge to create, like the urge to procreate is I suppose a dissatisfaction with things as they are. We want to add our few brush strokes to make it better, or at least to be able to say we tried.
June 22, 2020 at 10:31 pm
I think this is the way it is for those who are devoted and who start and return to the feeling of the “restlessness” just as you describe. I wish freedom were a quality of creativity, and somehow I guess it is. It’s the contribution you say (I think correctly) we want to add to make the world better. If art could be materially free for the artist (means and time), then there might be so much more. But the better encouragement for art seems to come after the fact, long after. Maybe I’m whining.
June 23, 2020 at 10:02 am
I don’t think you’re whining. Even the words ‘art’ and ‘freedom’ are so open to interpretation, it’s hard to discuss them sensibly.
June 23, 2020 at 11:04 pm
True enough, thank you.
June 21, 2020 at 4:11 pm
I thank God every day for the creators living on this planet.
June 22, 2020 at 10:33 pm
That’s a meaningful and wonderful thing (things–well, them) to be thankful to God for. I believe God raises artists and wants them do well. All of them.
June 23, 2020 at 1:57 pm
ah! i love the tugging of ideas here. is it an urge? an instinct? what? beautifully captured, brother!
June 23, 2020 at 11:07 pm
Thanks again, sister, for your enthusiastic response! God can create perfectly, certainly. But when we try to create (or co-create), so many things are going ’round our heads and hearts. Somehow the art happens.
June 24, 2020 at 5:07 am
Oh so true. You’re welcome, brother!