A Poem by Charles Simic, From *Dime-Store Alchemy:The Art of Joseph Cornell*

(As I say in the title of this post, this is a poem by Charles Simic. Being a prose poem, that may be difficult to discern. Here goes--)

STREET-CORNER THEOLOGY
It ought to be clear that Cornell is a religious artist.
Vision is his subject. He makes holy icons. He proves
that one needs to believe in angels and demons even in
a modern world in order to make sense of it.
The disorder of the city is sacred. All things are
interrelated. As above, so below. We are fragments of
an unutterable whole. Meaning is always in search of
itself. Unsuspected revelations await us around the next
corner.
The blind preacher and his old dog are crossing the
street against the oncoming traffic of honking cabs and
trucks. He carries his guitar in a beat-up case taped with
white tape so it looks like it's bandaged.
Making art in America is about saving one's soul.


(Me again--I especially like the middle paragraph. So true, so true. So go read more poems and write more poems.)