WHEN ASKED ABOUT A DRAWING

 

WHEN ASKED ABOUT A DRAWING

OF MY BROTHER CUT OUT IN CLOTH

                              A poem for public school teachers

That teacher in 8^th grade,

in the city school in Seattle--

                                               She said,

Take your wrist from the paper,

only the pencil touches, don’t

look at the paper, take your eyes

off it now. Look at what’s in front

of your eyes. Draw what you see,

don’t peek. When we were painting

trees, she showed me to make brush strokes

below what I thought were branches

telling me, Now, Brown paint.

Now you’re painting what you see.

This is color. You’ll need lots

of brown paint. She gave us large

envelopes big enough to slip

our paintings into. We carried

them under our arms and they went

all the way up to my arm pit, and

it had a string attached

to the large flap that wound

around the small cylinder

on the bottom securing our art.

When drawing portraits the first thing

she pointed out is where I drew the eyes.

Look at where you put them!

You put his eyes at the top of his head!

Look at the face! Eyes are in the middle.

And where does the nose go? Is

your wrist tired? Is that why it rests

on your drawing? I was most proud

of my forest, newly awakened

to the douglas fir. I was from the prairie,

country. My teacher, from the city, she

shows me how to paint what is visible

underneath green needles. She

showed me the mountains.

I returned again and again to the horse,

drawing the head from the side,

the eye its own universe, all-seeing,

and its single breathing nostril. That

brown envelope carried all of my work.

It was large, more cumbersome

than my trombone case

that was bigger than my body.

Nearly 80, now, I draw her face,

not knowing my teacher’s name.

Jim Bodeen

15 October-9 November 2024