In your art, you reveal yourself
but at the same time with every choice,
every word or stroke or line,
every step by Sting
each movement by Mahler,
any selection you may make
also obfuscates.

It’s true: when you paint a grey day
have you wiped away all the sunshine
of your past?
Those memories are not erased.
That history resides within
and still constitutes the mystery
that makes you
even if you mention none of it.
What you avoid is you, too.

Our silences inform.
The emptiness illuminates.
The white spaces
and blank walls
and blocks of wood
awaiting the chisel
…all provide insight
into their respective artists.

Our absences
define everything.