GETTING OUT THE WORD

Getting Out The Word
Age 66, Williston, North Carolina, 2010

-- This is one poem, in an autobiographical series of poems, that I posted here at WriteSpike. Go to my stories section for others. They are in chronological order. --

All endeavor calls for the ability to tramp the last mile,
shape the last plan, endure the last hours toil.
The fight to the finish spirit is the one... characteristic we must possess
if we are to face the future as finishers.
~ Henry David Thoreau ~

In 2009
I Googled myself -
my work had been quoted six times
at a contemporary art conference
in Milan Italy

those essays about digital art
and the modern art of the 20th Century,
that no one had taken seriously,
were getting a major play in Europe
by professors who took it a step further

fast forward:
nine months later
my photos and writings
were shown again in Milan
at the following conference
but this time
next to Italian Futurist paintings -
a movement that began exactly 100 years before -
by artists who wanted to make visible
the imagery of motion in ways similar to mine

it was enough to take myself seriously
(but hopefully not too seriously)

so as I end this series of poems
I have so much more to do;
the work is not finished until
I have gotten out the word
and it will not be done
unless I do

arriving at this point
has been a life long effort -
and I would love to rest at the age of 66 -
yet no one knows how long they have

as Thoreau pointed out
the world belongs to the finishers
who, although exhausted,
nevertheless go on