WHERE THE LIGHT ENTERS

My painter friend John Millei sent me a heads-up about Howard Norman's new book on Jake Berthot, The Wound is the Place the Light Enters. The title is a quote from Rumi and I had just started Haleh Liza Gafori's Gold, possibly the most successful translation ever of the poet into English. If that wasn't enough synchronicity, I was also listening to Leonard Cohen's Anthem, with the line,

"...a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in." From my cabin this time of year the sky is all but obscured by the canopy of the sugar maple stand on the slope. It glows through. I don't think you can paint here without the particulars of the Hudson Valley seeping into your work., or work in America right now without longing for the light. Just to work—that's where the light enters.