ART TEACHER

I'm sure she's dead now,
that graying art teacher of sixty years ago.

I was but seven.
She told me to sketch a vase of rosebuds,
then laughed at my work,
held it up to ridicule, teased,
but would not tell me what was wrong.

From that day on, I shut out form and color,
moved in a dun winter world
safe from pain which comes from effort's risk,
where careless laughter bleeds creation dry.

Five years ago, all caution cast away--
and with another teacher--I put a brush to paper,
saw the miracle of Spring's first crocus
as it thrusts, then opens in the snow.

            And now I see light's pattern on a leaf,

       the gentle bright of dying moon on distant cloud,

        rich mound of soil new-fallen from the plough,

 white flights that wheel, alight then follow in the furrow.

              I wonder what I might have known--
            what other children might have seen--
                but for the wasteful ridicule
             of one whose name is lost to memory.

           And yet, I must believe that in her mind
          she knew color, form, perspective, line--
         that somewhere there remains, from her life,
            some evidence of bright creative fire.

           Perhaps somewhere, deep in grassy plot--

     wrapped in rich tissue of earth and stone and root--

          there lies a box of bones of purest white,

      their beauty hidden deep, forever, from the light.

____________________
PUBLISHED:
OAC News, Oregon Arts Commission, Spring 1990
Clearing House, Vol. 15, No. 4, Marion Co. ESD, 5-6 1990
The Archer, Pro Poets, Vol. 38, No. 2, Spring 1994