TO HEMINGWAY AND KIERKEGAARD The best parts of a book, they say Are the wrecks of an author’s life The endless sighs and cries Mistaken as a prize. The Artist’s Reward, they call it. An art I’ll recreate Their sighs and cries together I here hallucinate. “I love you just the way you are,” Claims the eye of an archive Snooping for endless logic Too precious to survive. To retrieve a recollection. Passed in end a void Draws on the eye too blind By sensations overjoyed. The checklist delivered at birth A love completed in theory I do, but not enough to Sacrifice vision for memory. “I love who I’ve become with you” Cries deep and fervently The intensity of a newly felt love To transform a moment’s eternity. But the seduction of the highest height Engraves a false forever To secure against the ruins of time With a thread of artless pleasure. If the seduction of aesthetics Dare snare our love confined I pledge to cause the strength to leave our present behind. “We shall chat for all eternity,” Suggests the awakened artist. “With our love as the subject and you as the object.” And so it begins The tragedy of an artist’s soul Because a story that doesn’t end Cannot be a story told. But if this is the story I’m destined to create Let not my beloved surrender to this awry art called fate. “I love you for who you could be. for what we will become,” Transfigures the universal A fantasy rich as none. A reality in construction Lives only in the mind. As reality is its destruction And ends this love with time. And if we dare hold forever to be truer than the now Then each moment wasted Stands truer than our vow. The Artist's Reward is simply our faith in Eternity. Synthesis of the temporal and eternal With freedom and necessity. Combined with the infinite and the finite I found in your company. Two artists and one masterpiece Stands our humanity against destiny. The best parts of a book Are the gems of an author’s life Sighs and cries I now realize Are sweet, sweet tunes disguised.