To a Daughter with Artistic Talent
I know why, getting up in the cold dawn
you paint cold yellow houses
and silver trees. Look at those green birds,
almost real, and that lonely child looking
at those houses and trees.
You paint (the best way) without reasoning,
to see what you feel, and green birds
Some gifts are not given: you
bound by chains of nerves and genes
stronger than iron or steel, although
unseen. You have painted every day
for as long as I can remember
and will be painting still
when you read this, some cold
and distant December when the child
is old and the trees no longer silver
but black fingers scratching a grey sky.
And you never know why (I was lying
before when I said I knew).
You never know the force that drives you wild
to paint that sky, that bird flying,
and is never satisfied today
when the sky is a surreal sea
I tell you this with love and pride
and sorrow, my artist child
(while the birds change from green to blue to brown).
“To a Daughter with Artistic Talent” from Liquid Paper: New and Selected Poems by Peter Meinke, ©1991. All rights are controlled by the University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh, PA 15260. Used by permission of the University of Pittsburgh Press.