Spartan Wealth

Creation asks not for center stage.

How plentiful these quiet treasures
Demanding not a price,
Void of glitter,
Gaff,
Loud acclaim drowning senses,
And reason

Imagination pursues instead
Honesty’s nod,
The up-and-down gesture
Everyday patrons volunteer
On discovering virtuosity’s subtle essence.

Just as a flower needs but sunshine and moisture,
So too the Van Goghs of everyday living
Patiently await man’s simple willingness
To emote with the light of a smile,
Perhaps even tears,
Knowing as in nature,
Creative efforts spawn
Reciprocal wavelengths of appreciation,
Finding respite wherever
An honest heart and mind’s tuning fork awaits.

Often…

Creation senses not the obvious,
Artistry’s honorific slips,
Obliging a personage quest,
Unaware resultant luminary trappings
Often engender insecurities,
Petrifying life’s inner sanctum,
That place where inception seeds the unknown,
Bestows lasting memories
Where both a mother’s caress
And the brush strokes of oiled color
Add to the canvas of expectancy’s
Freely shared gifts and rewards.

Too late at times

Inspiration succumbs to notoriety’s demands,
Obliging a servitude to fame,
Risking enslavement,
Either to gilded prisons,
Or the bridled razor wire of power,
Needing to gallop down a home stretch
Willingly adding to the blood-laden turf
Determined that the day’s finish line
Will provide yet another carrot
To satiate the bestial appetite for superiority.

Fortunately…

A meaningful number
Manage to avoid a system’s pandering,
Obviating trophydom’s trap,
Existing solely as creation’s flow,
Appeasing those whose hearts and minds
Seek but revelation of impact,
A seeding of possible enlightenment
Respecting the virtue of namelessness.

So goes the Spartan wealth,
Accumulating with anonymous authenticity,
Giving its own reciprocal nod
Back to that which inspires creativity.

All without demands.

Without price.