Muddy Toes

My hand thinks that it could paint.

Glorious scenes of ethereal beauty

spring

 

from my imagination.

My mind flashes images--

captures

 

for an instant the Magnificence of color.

I will try, dipping my toes

in the pond

 

of Creativity.

I will wade in--

dipping my brush in the muddy water,

plying colors from my palette.

The sun shines.

The mud squishes through my toes.

And I Wait

for my hand to move the brush,

for the colors to flow,

for divine inspiration.

And I look around

to realize

my paints have dried on the palette.

I am left

 

with dirty toes

and a word

or two.

Reviews

[Blackbirdsong]

Oh Emily I really love this poem! The images of you with your toes dipping your toes into the "pond of Creativity" is a glorious one along with the image of the dried paint. Inspiration is just like that. It can come and go so quickly, but thankfully there are usually a couple of words left over to either inspire us later or become part of something else.

[T. Val]

Not sure if this is meant to be taken completely literally, but I love the choice of words, and you painted a picture in my mind of the character standing in a pond. Great work.

[Leslie Philibert]

The first thing I thought was Constable (?) when I saw the picture, I know as much about art as a elephant about flying, but you really picked a fine picture. I really like the poem, with a nice touch of self ironical humour that makes the poem even more poignant.
You have written a poem that feels good and whole with itself, another fine work.

[Holly Mason]

muddy toes left with a word or two
creativity moves like this
you have this written so beautifully with so much imagery from the pond of creativity to the paint dried on the palette
what a way to describe such a deep subject-each individuals creative arch either it will be given the power to form the bridge or we will always wonder what is on the other side
thank you for sharing truly

[lei]

what an exquisite write, Emily

[Emily B]

very old :) from a much younger me

thank you

[MOON]

Lovely write we paint with words and sometimes we left with just a word or two lovely imagery.

[TL Boehm]

Ah. quintessential Emily. Right here. This made me smile. What also makes me smile is to see the reviews of all of us old friends who love you, and your work yet say it so much better than I do.

[...]

. oh ... what a piece this is ... i so wish i had read it earlier ... today seems like one of those days when all i have is "a word or two" ... but that's not important ... what's important is that right here are words that are beautiful, surreal, and, absolutely exquisite ... there are so many colours here ... so much light ... so much inspiration ... you prove that those who have enough heart can make magic with "a word or two" ... they are very rare though ... and that's why you are rare ... but they are there ... to inspire ... the rest of us ...

[Jeff Loquist]

oh, but you paint beautifully every time your fingers touch the keyboard or pen touches paper