In Judgement

Art hurts. Art urges voyages -
and it is easier to stay at home.
—Gwendolyn Brooks

Remember painting a tree, grass and a sun?
Sun spikes surrounded a red-orange ball
twice the size of the tree top. I remember
painting purple leaves and yellow flowers
shaped like tulips, or teacups on sticks.
Later on I discovered that teacups have handles
and flowers have petals and it's hard to draw
a teacup that stays on the table and doesn't float
through the air or a flower that looks like itself.

Remember when only you knew what was on the paper
and adults said tell me about your picture.
That happened before you drew the fat trunk
and round tree top, before you knew about the round sun,
or the names of flowers and how to tell them apart.

Once I heard an adult say to a child who painted
the sky green and the grass a deep plum
that's not the way you see the sky or the grass
I still see magenta clouds and cerulean blue bushes,
sap green stars and imperial purple rivers.

Today I painted a path of orange and pink across
a page. I added a red line and a small square, stood
back and let my eye roam the landscape.
An adult said, don't be offended but it looks
like a pig on a leash. No, it's a cycle, a hum,
a sequence repeating an endless pattern.
It's an interpretation of a Fibonacci number
gone awry, a line leading to the other side
of the paper where endless white terrain
obliterates pink pigs on leashes.


Poetic Asides prompt