After Eduardo Hurtado’s “How To Paint the Sky”  

How can I love gray?
Light seeps in, settles like old paint,
incredibly tired.  

But I remember
true brilliance:
No sky at all, just light and air,  

a place for cats and other living things.
Art is long. 
Paint yourself into a corner, settle in.  

Consider, as the poet says—
poet as trickster, truthteller, fakir—
in your corner, the love that hides,  

patched together,
love as necessary as light,
that one big thing the hedgehog knows.