BETWEEN THE ARTIST & THE EASEL
©Robert C Burnham
Between the artist and the easel
Many drops miss their mark
Between the cradle and the grave
Many lights have lost their spark
And who do we blame,
The artist or the clay
Too many hours spent at work
Or so few spent at play?
I tell you my world has faltered
But yours doesn't need to do the same
Don't let go your own convictions
And always remember the Lord's name
He is the one who crafted you
A master's stroke fine and bold
His hand is there to carry you
His hand is there to hold
I wonder why I'd say these things
As my own life disappears
I guess because when He makes a heart
He makes a heart that cares
I know I wasn't meant to be
Just a blotch falling off the brush
But I'll try to find contentment
Somewhere in my final rush
If I could just save you sweet Ashlie
Or someone else that I have known
I could then enter the Gates of Eden
And no longer search alone
For the artist that created me
And the many questions of my soul
But first these words I tell to you
Sin no more and go
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Comments: 62
Psalms 66:8-12
Praise our God, O peoples
Let the sound of His praise be heard;
He has preserved our lives
and kept our feet from slipping.
For you, O God, tested us;
you refined us like silver.
You brought us into prison
and laid burdens on our backs.
You let men ride over our heads;
we went through fire and water,
but you brought us to a place of abundance.:)
Tracy,
that is an interesting comment!
You know how I can get.
When you feel down, you call on me, understand?
I like how you always write such lovely words that come from the soul.
Keep these fond words in the world.
10 4 u
Thanks for posting to my group, Anythingwriting
In any case, a terrible beauty, this poem.
To the women: Café
Life has joys and sorrows. Without the sorrows, the joys would not be so precious. It's the lean times that teach us to appreciate the good times. God bless you.
Wanting something is not enough. You must hunger for it. Your motivation must be absolutely compelling in order to overcome the obstacles that will invariably come your way.
In the end, it is the person you become, not the things you have achieved, that is the most important.
Thanks for posting in Journey Into Poetry !
A mail from the vacation
This poem is like a single beautiful, warm ray of divine light. Just before I read this gem of yours, I was swimming in some very beautiful feelings , brought on from reading two other absolutely wonderful pieces. One was from my Jenny's fecund, stirring imagination and brought Nature gloriously alive in my heart.
The other was a beautiful, immersive, even Dickinsonian piece with a Zen-like closing that left me breathless. That was JustMe's latest work. And yet, here I am, moved so deeply by your glinting jewel of a poem that I'm actually commenting on it even before the two others I've just read.
How can one with such light inside him, one with such strong faith and such unshakable humanity, ever contemplate ending his life?!!! It's beyond me. You're a truly precious creation of the Lord - see Sandy A's icon; that's how Jesus loves us all, and especially *you* - like his own child!
You're a beautiful, precious soul, so warm and humane, so sensitive and caring that it hardly seems possible you're a *man* in a world so tragically fixated on the macho and so little on the magical! You have magic in your soul, my dear friend, and the reason I say it is because I feel such magical pulses shooting through me everytime I read one of your lyrical, heartfelt pieces!
I'll share here, for both our sakes, what I've never shared with even my closest friends in the real world, leave alone on a public forum like this. The details are not known even to my dearest heart Jenny. But I'll share it with you, my friend, I need to share it with you, for this powerful inner voice won't stop thrumming, keeps asking me to speak , and share, and maybe transform ....
Many years ago, I lost someone dearly beloved to me - to the Big C. Just a month before she passed away, we'd been engaged in a quiet, immensely beautiful ceremony. In ten days, we would have been married, but it was not to be. She died, frail and emaciated, barely able to speak or even breathe, and looking like the most terrible travesty of glorious womanhood - and she the most beautiful woman I'd ever seen. She was my first beloved, my College sweetheart, my truest and deepest love till the Cosmos gifted me my Jenny.
The details of what I went through for nine years after that aren't important, for God has now rewarded me amply. Through those zombie years, though, what I didn't ever once contemplate was ending my life. That would have been the worst insult to the love that had gone before the languishing, to the dance before the destruction. And believe me, I literally felt hellfire sizzle and burn inside my deepest recesses all those years.
Yet I never gave up - on Life, or Love. For Life is Love, and there had been so much Love. I discovered that to live, and live fully and joyfully in the moment, was the truest tribute to all that beauty her love had made bloom inside me! It was through *her* that I realised that the Love she brought me was not hers, that she was truly only channelising what was God's best gift to all creatures - the capacity to Love.
Forgive me this long-winded homily, my friend. It has gone far, far beyond a mere comment on your poem, but I just felt such an overpowering urge to reach out to you today, and there *is* a point to it, as you'll soon see.
You have so much love in your heart, so much kindness and sensitivity. I feel that so deeply every time I read anything you write - even if it's a two-line ping to my Jenny about her Dad, it packs such a punch, my friend! Such sensitive and loving souls will always have traumatic moments when the world will hurt them almost beyond repair - and God knows you've suffered terribly in recent times.
I implore you, Robert, make that very fount of love that is your heart, your strength. It is not in receiving it but in sharing it that we elevate ourselves ... and you do it all the time , so wonderfully and so generously, in that quiet, subtle, dignified way that is your hallmark and which I so love!
Keep spreading joy and love as you have always done, my dear friend, and your very own Juliet, your own darling "Jenny", will come. The cosmos always rewards, my friend, always!
That eternal love you crave is round the corner, I feel it in my bones. This is not said in the least bit flippantly - ask my friend Stirling, or my beloved Jenny. They'll tell you I truly feel things deeply, and I feel this so very deeply about you. The worst, deepest sorrows are all preparation - for just like any farmer, God needs to soften your heart-soil and make it receptive and fully appreciative of the most beautiful flower he's going to make bloom there - eternal Love!
I's His most precious gift to humanity, and your gift-wrapped package is around the corner, and it's so very beautiful! I feel it coming for you, so patience, patience, good soul! Hang on there, and revel in the love of all the beautiful people here whom you count as friends, and who love you to death, okay? ((((((((((((Robert))))))))
I finally managed to send you healing, two days in succession, though last night (Tuesday) I was exhausted from my session for (Jenny's) Dad and was too tired to do anything for anyone else. It is the same Universal Healer waves I have sent to Dad, so I'm hopeful you'd have felt at least an increased briskness of step if nothing else! :)
Thank you for this beautiful poem - it went really deep. All your other poems have touched me, too, though I may not have expressed it to you so openly and in such tedious, long-winded fashion as this epic! hahahah
All my love and encouragement are there for you - avail of it freely, uninhibitedly and as often as you wish, buddy, for the cosmos is limitless and its replenishment prompt and bountiful!
((((((((((((((((((((Robert)))))))))))))))