a Biography Captured on a Canvas

Yesterday I was at an art showing that used poetry as an inspiration for the painters.  A relative of mine asked me if she could use one of my poems for her work and she came up with a canvas that not only caught the essence of the piece she was using but my overall poetic journey over the years.  Thus, I wrote this for her this morning in thanks.

                                       
                                                      — for Ina

                   
A frog strums a dulcimer
            beneath the silver mirror of a full moon —
                         
                      and it all comes back
                              to me
                         
                                    .

                                    .

                                    .

Nights spent inside the virgin mouth
                            of stumbling poetics,
        trying to decipher the roses
  and internal lava dwelling within the turbulent garden
                                                  of my heart.
Oh the youthful suffering
                      of broken loves,
        the ecstatic phrasing of a mad prophet,
                            the tears, the laughter
          of indelible ink scratched upon the surface
                    of a bell of language,
              naked and ready to be touched
                      by a monk’s inexperienced hands.
I trembled before a stammering muse,
                tried to tame it,
          bathed myself over and over again
                                  in the waters of literary ritual,
                always looking for the perfect phrase,
                      always seeking the whisper
                  that echos from Creation’s fertile lips.
Now, 5 volumes of poetry
                    sent out into the world . . .
        may their chorus of fragmented words
                      touch a few ears and resonate.
That is all I can hope for . . .
          but it is enough

                                    .

                                    .

                                    .


So in the afterglow of an early Spring morning
                          I thank you
          for you have captured who I am
                         
                      in a single canvas
                              blessed
                                  with a brush of understanding.