There’s a remedy -only one – for the paralysis seizing your throat to mute you,
numbing your hands:

Remember the great ones, remember
Cezanne doggedly sur le motif, his mountain
a tireless noonday angel he grappled like Jacob,
demanding reluctant blessing.

Each life in art
goes forth to meet dragons that rise from their bloody scales
in cyclic rhythm: Know and forget, know and forget.

It’s not only
the passion for getting it right (though it’s that , too)
it’s the way
radiant epiphanies recur, recur,
consuming, pristine, unrecognized….

And then, look,
some reflection of light, some wing of shadow
is other, unvoiced.

You can, you must
proceed.

Denise Levertov, For Those Whom the Gods Love Less [extracts]