Never-Ending Genesis

The subject of the art is not
Out there waiting for you, is not
Necessarily in your mind,

Although you will have to dragnet
Your memory to dredge it up,
Or something close enough to it

So that you can begin your sketch
Or elaborate your first scene.
The subject of the art may turn

Out to be so derivative
That no one finds any value
In it past perhaps craftsmanship,

But even then—even stolen,
Lifted from memory, largely
Or entirely imitative,

The exact subject for your art
Doesn’t yet exist. You stare out
Across the lawn of the summer

Park lodge to where several easels
Have been set up facing the cliffs,
As plein-air enthusiasts paint

Just what they see in front of them.
Surely the subjects of their art
Exist, the cliffs, as they’re given?

No, in your skull you disagree,
And draft your disagreement here:
They may paint pre-existing cliffs.

They may rely on memory
Of past plein-air paintings, of craft
They were taught in this or that class,

But the subject each will capture
Will be the subject each has made.
You feel you must insist on this

As the most wonderful aspect
Apparent in this universe.
Things can come into existence,

And with each flick of a paintbrush
A subject of art has been made—
The whole history of the world

Has been increased by that subject,
That painter on the brilliant lawn
Of a public park in the shade.