Of time and turning and Friday and rain and inspiration.

A few year's back, painter Kim Krause asked me to write to his work for a catalog called Chronos/Tropos which means, loosely, of time and turning. On a rainy Friday, with Peter Adams' swirling music in the background, I present the closing poem to you.

I wish you a blast of love or inspiration that is so epic that you too allow yourself to fall into the glorious void of the unknown.

***

When Leda was lying with the swan, when it was hard to discern feather from flesh, could she have told you how that story was going to end? When Hero watched the surf pounding the shore, while she waited for Leander to walk out of the ocean to enter her tower, once again, did she imagine anything but an orgasmic ending? When Penelope asked the weary traveler to string a bow to shoot a dozen ax handles, did she already know that it was her beloved Odysseus, finally? When you stare at a white canvas or a blank page, when you are compelled to strike it blue or tender or both, when you begin to feel your way into the gap, do you already know whether or not magic will avail itself to you? When you meet someone who makes every cell in your body spin and dance and shout yes ! yes! yes!, when you can think of nothing else, when you begin to believe that the tide and the moon and all things that turn do so in your favor, can you trust that you will also have time on your side? When you are a mortal soul, does any of this matter so long as every so often when the wind is right and you’ve suffered long, you get a blast of love or inspiration that is so epic, so mythic that you come to believe yourself to be otherwise?