Can one draw a scratch of thought into the shaft
of a line that after long perusal suddenly head-on
finds its own depth?

Can one see hear it in the glance of the
white, in a wing that touches its shadow,
in the viewing that hatches a window-pane?

The artist stakes out silence, takes over time,
retreats, omits, only holds on to
what leads to essence: the stem of a
nude, the churlish chair, the cross, the man
alienated from his presence.

The artist seeks the detachment of nothingness
in the astonishment at what a line, a spot,
a streak can bring to life: the existence that
breaks out of things, the soul called pencil
or ink, graphite or chalk, the hand
that then comes from above

Translated by John Irons