Via Negativa, from “Pitcher of Moon”

I have been thinking of this issue of creativity, where it comes from and where it goes. Some have this concept that artists, poets, etc. construct their work in isolation, but I think that is only part of the picture of creation. We breathe in the environment, we grab color from the cosmos. But also, those periods of Silence, Stillness, embracing the Dark of our souls, are important to our creativity, those fallow places…as much as when we are in full drive. Perhaps more important. Perhaps our work is born from a nothingness, a void, where we struggle to make it ‘real’…to bring it to some life, to expose it to air and light, to present it to the cosmos, to grab color and air by doing so. I don’t know. Perhaps we don’t really think of this process of creativity, and perhaps we don’t need to. There are too many words that get in the way of it.

“Via Negativa” is a poem from the soon-to-be-published Pitcher Of Moon.

Lady Nyo

VIA NEGATIVA

Winter is the perfect channel
To carry Via Negativa,
No static
Just Silence, Stillness
And the embracing Dark.

On this path,
We sit in contemplation,
relish the early dusks,
No answers,
No struggle,
We are as empty as eggshells.

This time is filled by little outside;
A flash of darting cardinal
Like a stream of blood
racing past our eyes,
The sound of a falling limb
makes us search the skies,
The moaning of the wind
bustling around eaves,
soothes us,
The rattle of skeleton- bones
Of attic haunts
does not disturb us.

And yes, Death,
As Winter brings
To those who succumb to frigid winds,
And those lost from shelter.

These things are part of this path,
This dark quietude of a particular season.

We spiral into the Darkness,
Where we barely need breathe,
Cocoon,
Conserve our energy,
And stare outside at such
A severe palette.

Stilling ourselves,
Stilling our hearts and thoughts,
We draw closer to low fires,
Scratch our dried skin
Like a monk in a hair shirt,
And, with time and patience–
Spiral back into the light of Spring.

Jane Kohut-Bartels
Copyrighted, 2012-2013