Art

by Jack Myers

is a quality of attention,
the way color says how
light feels: yellow for the
aerosol of happiness, black
for the zero of what isn’t;
the way light, lined up right,
can cut through steel.  Anything
is art if the mind’s flawed right:
how soup feels being stirred,
how silence, broken open just so,
releases its essence and graces
the mind as a mint leaf in the air.

It’s those who can’t understand and
are dumbfounded by the obvious,
who thrive on dissonance and
subverting the ordinary into the
extraordinary who end up being
artists.  What good is that, you ask?
No practical use as far as I can see.
In fact, Archimedes could’ve been
bragging about art’s uselessness when
he said “Give me a long enough lever,
a place to stand, and I will lift the earth.”