Monday, May 11, 2015

My Daughter Sketching

For you are my strength and my refuge:
  you will lead me out to the pastures....
                                                      Psalm 30
                                                                                                                            Van Gogh


                                                I don't know where she goes
                                                when her softer lines take unseen routes,
                                                curve into other realms.

                                                The crosshatched maps of her thoughts
                                                spread over the pale-laps of pages;
                                                mimes of shadow and light across a crumpled quietude.

                                                She leans and sings while blackening the sky,
                                                her hand and eye dancing a graphite variation,
                                                coal-black birds across the dusky rye.

                                                I don't know where she goes
                                                on her sojourns of solitude
                                                through the lonely lying of the light,

                                                vast outstretching imaginings;
                                                arrow shifting within
                                                the compass of her wandering.










3 comments:

  1. Oh, how wonderful. This could have been written about me in my sketching and painting days :).

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  2. Cynthia, I think about growing up when I read this. I love that you have the gift of presence in which to capture these moment, feelings, questions, and longings. Brava for this kind of reaching-into-life poem. This could've been a messy one, but you kept it well, weaving it into perfect stanzas and not feeling pressure to answer the question in any sort of perfect way, but pointing to possibility.

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  3. Thanks Amy. I love when I am hit by something and take notice. I guess I need to be clunked over the head so often to focus. The gift of the beauty of her while drawing. So grateful....

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