Hymn to ART and to LOVE

I could live without a roof,
without the warm habit of a table,
without the known voice of blood
calling me from childhood.

Perhaps I would survive
the silence of an empty house,
the winters without embrace,
the cities where no one speaks my name.

I don't know.

But without art…
no.

Without art,
the world would be only matter,
a tired clock
repeating soulless hours.

Because art
breathes me.
It lives in the wound and in the cure,
in the shadow and in the light that insists.

It is the invisible gesture
that turns falling into dance,
memory into painting,
desire into music,
and pain into something that can still be beautiful.

Without art,
eyes would look
but not see.
The body would exist
but not burn.

And I did not come into this world
only to exist.

I came to feel,
to light soft fires in the darkness,
to touch the eternal
even if only for an instant.

So,
without friends… perhaps.
Without family… maybe.
Without a home… who knows.

But without art,
never.

and without love?

Without love,
music would have technique
but no tremor.
Painting would have form
but no skin.
Poetry would have words
but no blood.

And when it exists,
even silence has meaning.
Even loss illuminates.
Even fear turns human.

No.
Without love I would not know how to live either.

Perhaps that is why
art exists:
so that love
does not die entirely.

Jorge Levi