Michelangelo’s Advice To An Apprentice.

You would be an artist?
Have you worked out the meaning of life
for yourself? It’s no use trying, otherwise;
some things you must discover for yourself.
When you paint, you are a philosopher,
writer, musician, dancer. Fill your mind
with detritus, because, in truth, there can be
nothing insignificant. Lock it in a sealed chest,
to be opened by you alone. Distrust inspiration.
It is a bubble of iridescence, transient,
illusory, shattering before your eyes.
Let not those eyes be peacock vain –
Though you starve, you must know riches,
or how can you make me believe them?