By Mark Antony Rossi

What is writing but a race to reach the world before it buries the past. Before it buries the writer in a nameless grave. On an unfashionable street. Down by the tracks.

What is writing but a communique to the departed. Hey, Father you were right about a number of things. Yet the world changed and my values belong to another time. Your time.

Has writing been transformed by the Internet? No. The innovations are reserved to how Writing is delivered; not how writing is written. Very little literary style or structure improvements have taken place since free verse and flash fiction.

Ekphrasis, though an ancient practice of combining verse and art, has been making a comeback in the past decade. But I’m hesitant to proclaim it’s an improvement over the original intention. Technology has allowed easier construction rather a painter laboring for weeks or months. A welcome form and married modern assistance is a joy to behold.

What is writing but the deepest movements of our hearts and souls. I dare say the painter, the sculptor, even to a technical aspect, the singer cannot excavate the existential dimension of the human condition. This is writing at its purest distillation. A potent formula capable of lifelong artistic intoxication.

Be it the fisherman or the farmer the verse committed to memory stays beyond their earthly toil. Like an angelic weathervane, Writing points from on high the way to a safer plateau meant to give rest to the weary. We may not be able to stop the storm but we can learn from its fury how to push forward and live without fear.