Here's a sonnet I wrote back in 2007 to be part of an exhibition of photographs by my friend, William Ames Bascom (who did the photographs in Falconry and Other Poems). The photos were all in black and white; the title is an allusion to the formal title of  "Whistler's Mother."

Arrangement in Grey and Black

It must be rare, at least, in that great deep
And mystery of heart and mind, that we
Conceive a new idea: as rare as if
One were to fall in love by willing it.

Ideas dawn on us, they come to us,
Rise up from silent and unfathomed pools
Like ancient fish, or fall down from the Light
To cast the shadows of the world we know.

The skills of logic and of science give
What even love, in love, provides: some means
By which we can assess, connect, arrange,
On their own terms, the givens of each art.
Our creativity must lie in what
We make of them, as we compose our lives.