In a world frayed by loss and longing, art is how we rise. This week’s poem is a call to remember: creation is resistance, and beauty is survival. EZ
This is precisely the time when artists go to work. There is no time for despair…That is how civilizations heal. – Toni Morrison
There is a canvas stretched across the sky
not framed in gold, not signed in oil
but streaked with the blush of morning
and the soft sigh of dusk.
And that…is art.
Art is not only a gallery thing.
It’s not confined to brushes or stages,
sonnets or scripts.
It is how we survive,
how we resist,
how we remember we are still…
beautiful.
Still here.
Still human.
Yes—art is the painting, the poem,
the saxophone solo that breaks your ribs
only to rearrange them with light.
It’s the street mural shouting justice on a forgotten wall,
the spoken word exploding in a basement room
where someone finally feels heard.
It’s the actress trembling on opening night
because she dared to become
someone else
to show you
yourself.
But art is also
the way a grandmother braids her granddaughter’s hair
like a lullaby passed down through fingers.
The way a man, lost in grief,
finds the strength to set the table
for one.
Again.
Anyway.
Art is in the protest song
and the lullaby.
In the love letter
and the letter that says goodbye.
It is found in gospel choirs and whispered prayers,
in the ritual of rising
when nothing in you wants to move.
Art will save us
because it reminds us of what is sacred—
not just the painted cathedral ceilings
but the cracked mug filled with tea
offered to a stranger.
There is an art to kindness.
A choreography to compassion.
The ballet of stepping aside
to let someone else shine,
and the jazz of showing up
exactly as you are.
There is an art to living—
not just surviving—
but living.
Fully.
In color.
In courage.
In creation.
It’s how we turn pain into poetry,
grief into grace,
and rage into rhythm.
It’s how we gather the broken pieces
and mosaic them into meaning.
Art is not a luxury.
It is not decoration.
It is declaration.
Rebellion.
Reclamation.
Resuscitation.
When the world forgets its soul,
art is the remembering.
It is the pulse beneath the noise,
the drumbeat of truth
when silence becomes too costly.
And when systems dehumanize,
when leaders erase,
when cruelty becomes currency—
art stands up.
Stands tall.
Stands open.
It says:
We feel.
We hurt.
We love.
We will not be made numb.
Because the dancer knows something the tyrant never will:
how to rise on broken feet.
The poet knows
how to tell the truth slant,
but sure.
And the child—crayon in hand—
knows how to draw a better world
without even asking permission.
So let us paint.
Let us sing.
Let us craft our lives like masterpieces
stitched with spirit.
Let us write the prayers that haven’t been spoken yet,
offer kindness as currency,
and practice the quiet art
of gratitude.
Art will save us—
not because it fixes everything,
but because it makes us brave enough
to face what must be fixed.
So keep making.
Keep creating.
Keep living
like your life
is the most important poem
you’ll ever write.
