Heartache fully realized is relief;

Just as a clay sculptor forms brilliance through design

A forever mark, an expression of capability,

A trademark; “of his truth”

Each artist must journey through the kiln,

Pass through the fire, to know

 His realized beauty.

Once, a grey lump of malleable sand and silt

Emotion harnessed from heart-to hand-to object;

Before him in this thing of nature,

That was once meaningless is now exquisite.

The doctor scrawls his words in his notebook

“A slight murmur”

A stethoscope has changed nothing,

This murmur was his song,

Always one beat behind,

Varnished red, as brown as hemoglobin’s shadow

Always a little blue,

A song of a struggle, a song of a want; oxygenation

How do some live an artless life?  

Why do some fight for air, when it surrounds us?

How could art be….

All that it is

Without the doctor’s recognition

of a broken heart?