For The Record

There can be no fine fossil record
but, caught in amber, two drops of blood,
with spider and web reveal, gene by gene,
eon by eon, sperm to egg
generation by generation,
five hundred million years of successful
replication; hour by hour, error
by error; the accurate attachment, thread
by thread; faithfully treading lines of code
with practice of no forethought or hindsight
but weaving a web that spreads
from little bits of clay
to radiate around the world today.

Its left and right sides are two thirds as long
as it’s top and bottom sides and the
left side is located where a line drawn
from a point halfway between the midpoint
of the top side of the square is crossed by
two lines, the first of which is drawn from
a point halfway between the midpoint of
the left side and the upper left corner
to a point halfway between the point
halfway between the centre of the square...

The thought is seeded, streaming, crystal, in
one hundred billion supersaturated cells.
And so the artist conceives of a work that uses
idea as the object. Neither geometric
nor organic; seen by the blind and passed
from host to host by any temporary means.
Expressed with high fidelity, projected
transparent on an uneven wall or
played-out like the accelerated evolution
of jazz, spun and caught on record,
remastered, analog to digital; passing
the old grey whistle test of hook-line
and finally the test of time that, though unfaithfully
falling onto fertile minds, outlives the liver’s longevity.

Italics:
Instructions for a wall drawing ,The Location of a Square, by Sol Lewitt. John Weber Gallery New York. Exhibition 1974.
Lewitt said “Ideas can be works of art” and coined the term Conceptual Art.