A true artist

I'm listening to Joni Mitchell sing 'Both Sides Now'. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcrEqIpi6sg

So simple, so lovely. Someone has posted a comment that says 'You can tell the greatness of an artist by how she communicates a truth, a struggle, a beauty, or a moment of clarity.' Doesn't that make sense? As I listen to her sing I note the absence of props, of extras – it's just Joni, getting lost in her song. I remember a fragment of a poem read long – the poem is about something else, but it fits the thought, the picture of an artist alone with her art, lost in it. The line goes 'The single body, alone in the universe, against its own best time'. And here's the poem: http://slowmuse.wordpress.com/2009/01/07/the-single-body-alone-in-the-universe/