Over the weekend, I visited the SF MOMA with my niece Isabel and nephew Simon to see The Steins Collect: Matisse, Picasso, and the Parisian Avant-Garde. As a long time lover of Matisse’s work, it was thrilling for me to experience this exhibition with Isabel especially, she was quite taken by the simplicity and elegance of his line drawings, and the wild color and composition of his paintings. When I’m with the kids, given the opportunity to see through their eyes, I’m instantly aware of how past layers on present, and know that each glimpse – as the lens blurs and focuses – reminds us of lives and times infinitely entwined.

if i close my eyes the truth is familiar                                   

the trick is
to find the silence
the stillness
the space between

tear away at the layers
i am a palimpsest
many lives erased
recollections seep through
what hides inside the quiet
the calm beneath the chaos

visions are often
accompanied
by murmurings
of the dead
let go
magic takes over
leaving the living
to pursue renewal

time is standing still
watching
lives on lives
beforeafter

knowing what you are
who you are
changes from moment to moment
from mind to eye to hand

the journey turned to history
most known and best loved

clarity comes from miles away
passion paints you
wraps you
awakens the imagination

truth must be discovered
moment to moment
a remembered truth
is a dead thing

it is the past
which links us
even in its absence
but it is the present
which we call our own
while the future looms
provokes and seduces

creativity from chaos
balanced around the heart
this body
is only a marker

~ from Writing for My Life…Reclaiming the Lost Pieces of Me: A Poetic Journey by Nancy Levin