Twa Corbies by Arthur Rackham

by Mason Street In Uncategorized

Conflict Resolution

One cackles to the other:

Here lies the unrecognized artist

her work all to naught, betrayed

by a fence she once tried to cross.

Stones erected by cruelty

are stronger than will (as shame

is stronger than justice or revenge)

and gravity is but the obstacle of others’

self-interest and desires unfulfilled.

Rarely is it what you know, but who

you know; this poor artist knew

few but crossed the path of those

of ambition, hypocrisy, vanity—

and so she lies fallen, her efforts

unmarked, obscure.

The other thinks:

I don’t much like what this crow

has to say.Yes, death is

death, its equalitarian

decree comes to us all. But our

accomplishments may live on

like evolution and natural selection

may take all sorts of directions

and for what matters in a dead name

Darwin or Wallace or other unnamed.

The artist is best who works

not for recognition but for creation.