Inspiration - the breath of life,
It never leaves the dusty, varnished canvas,
Never disappears,
But as all life, it watches time go by
And feels the smell of age within the gallery
Though to the beholder it is all the same,
For he will never know how it once looked,
Once felt,
What life was captured here by genius forgotten.
Nor will we all,
Except the art restorer.
That breath of life consuming all his days,
To him it’s more than breath,
Or heartbeat,
Each crack he will sew up,
Each spot devoid of paint, he will fill in,
And then go thankless for it.
The Lord made Adam clothes of flesh;
He brought a life to life.
If it was not the pen that pierced my heart with passion,
It would have been the brush, the swab.
O what desire to entomb myself in baroque palaces,
Surrounded on all sides by mirrors save reflection.
I dream to spend my life restoring art,
If I had chosen sooner, acted faster, understood,
The Danube Waltz would play and play and play,
Nor would the hand of inspiration fade.
The closest thing to paradise - a selfless life without a care,
And every care, part of a breath.
It is a life that art restorers do not have,
The one I long to live,
It is a memory,
A fantasy,
A time gone by…
Perhaps Old London’s, or
Vienna’s, or
Odessa’s
Cobbled streets
Refracting all the sounds of boots, of carriage wheels, of canes
And shimm’ring horseshoes.
As art and genius hangs heavy on the air.
I don’t know what I want,
But if the world I want existed,
I’d be an Art Restorer
Clothing Humanity.
