Monday, March 21, 2011

In the Trenches


I'm slogging today
doing trench work

A day in, day out, labor of practice.
The shiny patina of brilliance supported by a thick under layer
of boring, unremarkable, foundational rock.
We don't see Olympic athletes in their daily grind,
We only see them in their moment of glory
and we wonder how they became so magnificent.
Trench work. Unsung. Unheralded. Solitary.
At times gloriously refreshing and strengthening,
Often beset with doubt.
What if after all of this digging and building,
and slogging through muck
there is no gold?

People think that art is magical,
gifted visionaries effortlessly creating
"Oh I wish I had your talent", they say.
"Nonsense", I think.
Do you want it enough to toil in the trenches?
When the walls you carefully and painfully dug
fall back in on you,
do you have the will to shore them up again
and sometimes again, and again
with no guarantee of the outcome?

I'm slogging today
doing trench work


4 comments:

  1. I can sure relate to this post today.

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  2. You are one of my inspirations, so keep up the good trench work my dear!

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  3. Oh me too, deep in the trenches today and the walls keep on a tumbling down. Maybe we should start a Sisyphus club

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  4. Ah, but that would be saying that our labor is futile. Not so - even if it feels like it sometimes. While Sisyphus was destined to forever fail, he also never grew as a result of his labor. We surely do - regardless of the outcome. Maybe the key difference is we have hope.

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