A statement arrives, shuffles, and ascends. It is opened;
a child assails it with a pen. You find a moment and frown
a checkmark by spending activities that match your ledger.
Black circles corral any numerical departures.
By calculator I attempt to interpret the scrawl, to pierce
the marrow of figures, but previous and present balances
are stark like Picasso’s later work. Don Quixote
on a scribble horse is a depiction more likely to be parsed.
I press the chop-saw through a two-by-four
and Van Gogh glares dust down around him.
Just above his head the rim has a bad chip.
His expression says, I never asked for this
as if he knew fate would glaze him.
I make another cut: yellow dust flies and settles
on the last of the cold black in my mug. I pause,
held by his steady gaze…then check my mark
and press the saw through wood again.
"Art is always transgressive. What I always say is, we need to transgress in love. We, today, have a language to celebrate waywardness, but we do not have a cultural language to bring people back home."
—Makoto Fujimura, abstract contemporary artist and illuminator of The Four Holy Gospels, a manuscript published by Crossway Publishing in commemoration of the 400th anniversary of The King James Version Bible in 1611.
Listen to Tim Keller’s intro to The Four Holy Gospels.
Visit Makoto Fujimura’s website.
You (And I) Said...