ABOUT THE POETRY PAINTING PROJECT
We selected 30 poems (from the public domain) and each day for the next 30 days I will write a poem inspired by it, and Addie will paint a painting.
So, without further ado, let’s get to today’s painting and poem, inspired by poetry from Ovid’s, The Metamorphoses (Book XV)
To read this poem, click here (or scroll down near the bottom of the page)
ADDIE’S PAINTING
MY POEM
LIFE IS A SHADOW
If life is a shadow of the infinite,
and to sleep is to dream,
then a dream is a shadow’s shadow.
Much is revealed of a thing in shadows.
The past is an empty banquet hall.
Our memories echoes that recede.
Are you happy with the notes you struck?
Did you pluck the present
like an apple of purest gold,
inscribed with the words,
“For your truest self,”
and heed its message?
You must have once had eyes
to see without them,
and ears like a frightened fox
to mute the world’s hue and cry.
You must be what you are before
what you’re not you may become.
OUR INSPIRATION
from THE METAMORPHOSES (BOOK XV)
by Ovid (trans. Henry T. Riley)
All things are flowing onward,
and every shape is assumed in a fleeting course.
Even time itself glides on with a constant progress,
no otherwise than a river.
For neither can the river,
nor the fleeting hour stop in its course;
but, as wave is impelled by wave,
and the one before is pressed on by that which follows,
and itself presses on that before it;
so do the moments similarly fly on,
and similarly do they follow,
and they are ever renewed.
For the moment which was before, is past;
and that which was not, now exists;
and every minute is replaced.
Notes:
Ovid, 43 BCE-17 or 18. Born in Sulmo, Italy, Roman Republic.
Link Biography: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ovid
Link to Poem: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/26073/26073-h/Met_XII-XV.html#bookXV_fableII
ABOUT THE POETRY PAINTING PROJECT
For the past couple of months I have been working on a huge new secret project with my painter, Addie Hirshten, of Studio Alchemy
We selected 30 poems (from the public domain) and each day for the next 30 days I will write a poem inspired by it, and Addie will paint a painting.
Expect an outpouring of creative energy! This is the sort of big project that artists live for … where we can say what we yearn to say. Big picture stuff. Heart wrenching stuff. I feel so inspired by the poetry we are working with AND seeing Addie’s process as well. Expect daily surprises with our posts. Expect passion. Expect love. Expect life.
Check Out Addie’s Instagram Account: www.instagram.com/alchemy.of.art.addie.hirschten/
Check out Addie’s art studio — Studio Alchemy:
studioalchemy.art/
To avoid criticism say nothing, do nothing, be nothing.
Aristotle
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