Art is an act of Love

Silence: a love poem

Letters stilled,

Songs buried with the dead.

Violence brought about

By the fear of words, the brush, the pen…

All birthed by pain and blood.

Images of enlightened are pursued by those who want to silence….

The power of thought,

Boldly struck;

Court death, censorship, imprisonment, exile

Or quickly, negation.

Yet this is how we love

Some praise the deceased

Lorca, Neruda, Brutus, Agosin, Lorde, Tutola

Stilled words

That still liberate us all

Many, many more musicians, writers, painters;

And the very heart of humanity the poets

This is how we love, now

By braving all

For all of us.

The few tears others shed

While savoring every fierce word and image;

That are left behind or becoming

Smell numbly of the fear

Of not embracing the art, the truth

And leaving behind blindness.

To us, the artists

That shiver awake at night

Lie in terror not of death

But of not loving enough.

This is not courage at all

That imperils us,

But passion

For we must see into the darkness

And define it;

Or suffer not to love.

Some have tried to stop me too

In so many ways’

To convince sweetly or conquer with terror.

I have been shot at, men threatened to have my hands cut off.

Worse ignored like the Cassandra that I am.

I never stopped for

What I,

All of us, fear the most,

Is to stop telling

And be silent.

This is how I love

Must love

Thoughts of the beautiful, the neglected, forgotten, untold

But haunted by the terrible visions of violence;

Rendered well.

For this is how artists love…

Toni Truesdale copyright 1990