! ! In The Empty Studio Poem by Michael Shepherd

The diffused northern sunlight
of this studio at dawn
matches the silence and the stillness

like the speaking silence
of the retrochoir behind the altar
of a simple white Greek island church –

that has no ornament; simply walls
painted in a pale blue wash,
the space, the air itself, as radiant with heaven;

behind the iconostasis – gold and candle and eternal gaze -
where praise is prepared; thought surrendered;
humility the robe; the sacred word awaits
the moment when it’s spoken;

so this studio; and at its centre, calling,
stands an easel with a white canvas on it;
what waits in this empty studio
that’s so full of emptiness that calls?

what challenges? This canvas
waits, as being ever does; full, content,
needing nothing but itself…

the silence will accept our spoken word,
then return to stillness;
the canvas will not be so forgiving;

‘make a mark on me that will not diminish
my completeness…; so let our being
meet, before a mark is made…’

this holy place: only godself may mark
this canvas and yet not detract; from space,
draw space; or may with colour stain transparent
this white white radiance of eternity:

and in the place whence all arises,
Nothing and Everything smile together
in their secret play.