When you start working, everybody is in your studio——the past, your friends, enemies, the art world, and above all, your own ideas——are all there. But as you continue painting, they start leaving, one by one, and you are left completely alone. Then, if you're lucky, even you leave.

——John Cage to the painter Philip Guston

* * *

All's a scattering,

A shining.

——Theodore Roethke