Poem by the Belgian poet Roland Jooris

Drawing

Can one draw a scratch of thought into the shaft

of a line that after long perusal suddenly head-on

finds its own depth?

Can one see hear it in the glance of the

white, in a wing that touches its shadow,

in the viewing that hatches a window-pane?

The artist stakes out silence, takes over time,

retreats, omits, only holds on to

what leads to essence: the stem of a

nude, the churlish chair, the cross, the man

alienated from his presence.

The artist seeks the detachment of nothingness

in the astonishment at what a line, a spot,

a streak can bring to life: the existence that

breaks out of things, the soul called pencil

or ink, graphite or chalk, the hand

that then comes from above