ART IV: Remembering Gwendolyn Brooks
For David J. Steiner, artist and filmmaker, December 26, 2016
art has its own language, name, and questions,
has clear talk, justice, and motivation.
art does not create itself,
does not escape the daily windstorms,
fires, gun blasts, ignorant mumblings,
or cruel misrepresentations of the
rulers and their gatekeepers.
artists and their art are liberated souls
forever sprinting and searching in the world.
they do not see borders, walls, or can’t do possibilities,
and when confronted with such,
they quietly and questionably,
loudly and deliberately—with
pens, paper, computers, film, cameras, paint,
canvas, phones, creative ideas, and feet—
run toward fear
without hesitation or limiting doubts,
with good and loving intentions, struggle
to move all of us into the yes community of
life-centered people
as directed by their art, conscience, and culture
while intentionally
advancing quality definitions of a
kind-based civilization and world.
