The object of art
Should be
To depict
To Explore,
Desiring beauty,
And therefore love -
As opposed
To their opposites
But only as
Means of definition.
Real artist leave
Revelation of reality
The zero entity
Of minus and plus
To life itself, betimes,
For life wields despair
And shafts the heart
And its raucous sound
And vein of dissonance
Afflicts with tension.

Art should lift
Not merely state,
Stuttering daily dilemma.
Art is the higher view -
The preview of hope
The rising swell
The soaring
The searing
Of beauty unleashed
From mundane drab
And "Slough of Despond".

Written by Addie W. Williams

February 2, 1983