Composer (1983) and Poem (1983)

and a poem: IN THE CHURCH OF THE HOLY CONTRADICTION WE LOOK FOR TEARS THROUGH A TELESCOPE 

Why should we go on watching each other through a telescope? -- Bob Dylan, Street Legal, 1978 

There is a drought and no messiah in sight 

Look at the thirsty land 

Look at the magnifying glass sun 

But no hand holds the glass 

No heart is moved by our sorrow 

Through a telescope we look for healing hands, 

A human heart, and eyes that shed tears. 

In drought and in deluge

These suns and gods 

Are distant 

Though amazingly graceful and near 

While we watch through telescopes 

Our church of sky, land and sea 

Fills with healing hands, 

Human hearts and eyes that shed tears. 

I couldn't remember the title of the above drawing until I found a list of drawings and paintings I had done that my mother had placed on the walls of their home. My mother chose this one for a place high on the wall in their living room, knowing that it was based on a photograph of Bob Dylan from the 1960s. Her title for it, though, which I did remember, was "The Judge." A friend of mine referred to it as the drawing of the "hockey player." The image is open to interpretation. When I drew this I was thinking of both Bob Dylan and Johann Sebastian Bach and Beethoven.  As I looked at this drawing for the first time in a long time, I remembered the poem I had written which was inspired by the words of a song written by Bob Dylan in 1978. When my mother died in 1994, the drawing came back to me.