Loneliness of Gray
by Odin Roark

Could It Be…

The mirror by which we see ourselves
This captive freedom of art in all of us
This necessity to communicate
Desire to become
Is but destiny’s
Loneliness of Gray

For if
As in physics
The typical complementary colors
Blue and yellow
Red and green
Passion's mainstay
When mixed
Yield gray

Then why
When one’s being
Claims gray
Must disappointment ensue

When there is such empirical truth at hand
When there is no opposite for gray
As it is its own opposite
It’s own quintessential purity
Of emotion’s blend
why

Yes

Some would say
The artist’s mind lives unique perceptions
Available to all
Yet determined by most
As out of reach

Few
Accept this fourth dimension
Others reject
Where hands and feet
Colors and viewpoint
Change about
Inviting the dual organs
Nostrils
Ears
Eyes
To express like colors
Embracing opposites
Allowing vocal cords of multiple mode
To render art’s communication
Imagination’s reverse tongue
Creativity’s spoken proclivity
To forever accept extremities of the mind
As wonderment
As living

Ever notice

How simple the artists’ walk
It appears to be on whatever surface
Imagination might volunteer
Be it floor
Path
Greensward
Or bomb-rutted road
Where surfaces creatively experienced
Reveal a virtually abstract pressure-balancing of gravity
Requiring little of tactile distinctiveness
But merely an accommodation
Today’s levitational force
Accomplishing needed transfers of altitude

Where the climbing of stairs
But a walk up from lower levels of existence
To higher realms of selection

To the Artist
Passage from one scene to another
Needn’t be a factor
Rather trust in gliding
Where shadow and blurred focus
Claim one’s mingled curiosity
Into a chosen whole

Where much of vision
Voids transient objects
Ambiguous appearances like
Furniture
Or details of vegetation

Seeking instead

A diffuse lighting of every scene
Rendering the scheme of reversed colors and texture
Bright red grass
Yellow sky
A conundrum of black and gray cloud-forms
Down to the white tree-trunks
Green brick walls
Embracing
A Lovingly
Angelical grotesquerie

Such reveals one’s essence
One’s creation
One’s smile at chance
Depending on how
The mirror might be hanging