My Human Disguise.
No complacencies of the sketch book.
My daughter stands at the overlook
Seeing. Should she first paint the white crests
Or the rocks? The water that never rests?
What ever rests? The seagull will come last.
She is cautious, paints well but not too fast.
She knows even violence must come slow,
It’s beauty a trompe l’oeil shadow show.
She’s always felt this power, like the sea’s,
To unerase with feathered strokes and seize
The form and feeling that are always there
Though they are as invisible as air.
She regrets only the distant whale spout,
So indistinct she’ll have to leave it out.