SCHOOL DESK IN AN ARTIST’S STUDIO

Plain tablet desks queued from the back of the room to the front,

And from side to side, with an occasional one set askew in a corner

Or some other empty space just big enough to hold the functional

Wooden design with slats underneath for books and a

Flat top curved and rounded like a student’s relaxed position

With head tilted to the back of the chair and

Hips slid to the edge of the seat for a day of inornate study drills

And recitations that replayed memories like Gregorian Chants. 

Words and numbers sprawled out across the room,

Reverberated in corners, and attached to chalk boards or paper

For the eyes to affirm what the ears had heard.

Parades of voices played across the din of shuffling feet--

Wooden joints creaked and wooden legs scraped;

Restless, muscled bones shifted in a rhythmic march

Of steps in tune, the cadence set, in a game of musical chairs

Until there is only one left, salvaged and set 

In the center of an artist’s studio for an old poet,

Eyes caught in a flurry of taborets, brushes, palettes,

And an empty dijon mustard jar among the landscapes

Streamed along the wall, cupboarded in floor shelves,

Leaned against one another like books stacked in a library row.

Snow-covered earth; morning-lit, river-tree branches;

Dark-grotto water lilies; frozen and flooded farm fields; turbulent clouds;

Stone boulders; and rock faces.   Sun-lit, shadowed ponds and rivers

Fused the mirror with the mirrored, and the aged poet’s

Gaze enveloped each painting as if wind clouds or

River currents, unbound and wild, buffeted against the surfaces

With light from another’s mind memorized and stored, she

Looked away from the tablet arm because words didn’t need to

Touch the artist’s ear.

© cmheuer, 2013