The Artsy Poetessa

I believe I was born a poet. I've been writing poems since I was able to hold a pencil and form letters. I fell in love with poetry hearing and reading nursery rhymes. My mother had a set of children's books, a thirteen volume compendium of leather covered books in shades of blue and green. I continued to read the Nursery Rhyme volume long beyond the age when I was reading chapter books and more. That was the birth of this poet. As a child I loved art also but lost that creative niche many years later. Now, in my older age I have rediscovered the pleasures of filling a page with color and shape. Of using crayons, pencils, pens, paint and many other mediums to make art. I have combined my loves of art and poetry more and more and here is a sample, honoring my declaration of becoming the Artsy Poetessa.

THE  POETESS

She sits on a soft chair of pink and green chintz in the corner of the room. Her legs curl beneath her long blue flowered dress. Her long blonde hair flows over her right shoulder. In her delicate hands she cradles a notebook and dances a silver barreled pen across the snow white page.

Beside her, on a small round table, tea in a china cup decorated with faded roses. A paperback anthology of poems perches opened, its pages like the wings of a dove.

When other students pass by on their way to football games or frat parties she tilts her head just so to let her hair fall like a curtain at the end of a melancholy play. She hides from the curious stares that she knows stalk her when she is wrapped in poetry.

She sits in her corner, writing and reading, the poetry that sustains her until after curfew. Alone in the stillness of the lounge she closes her eyes and absorbs the night air as it chills and the silence that is so elusive during the day. She feels a tap on her shoulder but she doesn’t startle. She knows it is her muse coming with new poems and words of encouragement soft aa angel wings.