Welcome to the post-Internet age
struggling to create an image
in an image-sickened society.
Where is the old slow art
of the eye and the hand united
in service to the mind?
Call it painting, call it writing,
call it the art of taking your time,
work and step away,
clean your brush, look out the window,
read and reread and reread,
fix the fire and pour the coffee,
work and step away,
that's the work that satisfies,
going slowly enough to get lost
in the inner expanse,
the world turned inside out,
taking the risk
you may never get back
or shall we call that the reward?
Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?
—T.S. Eliot
—with a sentence and an observation by Peter Schjeldahl.
