The Chosen Ones by William Michaelian
by Steven McCabe
If we cannot love everything and everyone,
can we, truly, love anything or anyone?
In choosing whom or what we love (if such choice were possible),
do we not proclaim that our judgment is larger than life itself?
Is not that choice an illusion?
If we love only what we think we love, are we not, then,
defining love and placing on it certain limitations?
Would it not be better to be defined by love,
than to try to define it?
Are we so small in our uncertainty and fear that we must love
only that which pleases us, or which we think reflects well on us,
or which loves us in return? If so, how can we call that love?
It is a grave error we make in thinking that anything exists
outside of love.
Can you, in your deepest thought and contemplation,
say which part of you loves and which does not?
If you say the mind loves, or the heart loves,
or that love is harbored in various glands and organs,
what, then, of the rest of you? Are parts of you worthy
or unworthy of love? Is love necessary to one part,
but not to another?
Is love a condition that changes with history,
time, and weather?
And what of the insane?
Are we love’s orphans, love’s abandoned step-children?
William Michaelian is an American writer, artist, and poet. His newest book is the Tenth Anniversary Authorized Print Edition of his first novel, A Listening Thing. His Author’s Press Series now contains three volumes: The Painting of You, No Time to Cut My Hair, and One Hand Clapping. Two poetry collections, Winter Poems and Another Song I Know, were published in 2007 by Cosmopsis Books. He lives in Salem, Oregon.
http://recently-banned-literature.blogspot.com/
I thought my most recent painting, Royal Song (the first image), might work with the pulsing ebb and flow of William Michaelian’s poem. Love and gold work together on some mysterious level. There is a lot of air (and thought) in this poem and the painting depicts a scroll and throne (in the open air) beneath a sun. The idea of light informing the conscious mind influenced my variations on the original image.
poemimage 
The poem is extraordinary and once again, I love your images. I’m beginning to yearn for the equipment to play with digital imaging.
Thank you j.h., Your visit is appreciated as well as your thoughts about the poem and the images.
The energy I get from painting isn’t really equalled by the digital side of things but I do love playing at this screen/window and Photoshop can become enjoyably obsessive:
Riffing off the poetry creating visual rhythms
leading up to certain word sounds, going over or under or around them…
trailing off or announcing a destination…
William’s poem was great for this…thoughts as words asking for consideration…
Beautiful post – I love what you’ve done with your images.
Richard, thank you for your visit and comment…I appreciate your observation & very glad to hear you feel it worked…
This is a colorful one! That scroll or banner transfixed by the branch really gets to me, like Christ stabbing through history. Then all of those eye forms like Ezekiel’s vision- there is a lot of associations there, but I am reluctant to get too carried away. Anyway, it is pretty intense, Steven. Sometimes I feel like you are tapping into a really deep spring with these images.
Hi Jack, Your phrase ‘stabbing through history’ really gets to me. Sometimes it takes a different set of eyes to describe something in an new way.
It’s interesting that you mention a deep spring. The way I felt about the poem was that it dipped down into water and silently returned both with and without water. Not sure how to explain the feeling. A certain ‘stillness’ in the poem. Which made me want to use this image.
I saw as the eyes emerged beneath the brushstrokes and they felt middle-eastern. They weren’t in the original sketch but (I guess) ‘wanted’ to be there. Many (& many) thanks for your interpretation.
Just gorgeous, Steven. The painting makes me think of an image from an illuminated manuscript and the way it shifts and bends – like turning pages and dancing light across them. Beautiful words, too.
Sublime.
Karen your thoughts make a cinematic and fluid impression…now I’m seeing large pliable pages, their surface a surprising texture, rolling into 3D shapes with light pouring into the room where the manuscript is stored…the words are like wooden type held in the palm. There has to be a sound with this…maybe chanting…or humming. Humming the poem…chanting the poem… Footsteps. A birdcage containing a pen.
Thank you for the inspiration.
It sounds like an incredible installation…
: )
Even contemplating it seems so metaphysical I think there might be a need for somebody like Merlin to be the tech person! As well as the narrator of the poem! It feels like a living hologram.
De toute beauté !
Merci
On behalf of William and myself, thank you, merci, Cristina!