WASTELAND ARTISTRY

Description of the desert...

The desert is a canvas,

Reaching to the sky,

Traced with many colours

Stretching wide and high:

 

Orange, amber, red,

Sage green, milky rose,

Covering the bareness

Like Joseph’s brilliant clothes.

Reviews

[TheLostWanderer]

Your ability to paint such a vivid picture with your words is a true gift. I also really enjoyed your allusion to the story of Joseph and his many colored coat. I feel it related well to your poem, not only because of the presence of colors in his coat, as in the desert, but also because Joseph would know about the desert, having lived there. A truly great example of good poetry.

[Marie]

Thank you very much. I wasn't sure everyone would get the reference to Joseph's cloak.

[Vishuddha]

I have lived in the desert, the high, southwest desert of low, rolling shadows and scurrying stands, empty skies and subtle, shifting colors, which I had, before, not even imagined. Your note that the desert is not just dust and sand stirs me because it is, with your usual brevity, so true. The desert is not a welcoming place yet I would hope that every poet might become acquainted with it and, at some point in their lives spend a night beneath its frozen stars, breathe its sweeping winds and arise with a sun that encompasses the entire horizon. You remind me of bygone days when I lived so close to the foreboding magic of this naked earth that I could almost touch its terrible beauty, and which, although you passed only quickly by, you must have felt as it impressed itself on your poetic soul and, which you in turn have expressed so beautifully. Thanks for the memories, Marie.

[Marie]

Well thank you. I lived for some time in New Mexico and love the desert there, though I believe Utah is even more beautiful.

[Will Neill]

Marie, ever since I was a boy I have dreamed of riding across the plains and desert just like my cowboy hero's I Iiked your poem. Maybe someday I may get the chance.
Will

[Marie]

Well I have only driven across thedesert onm a car. but that was enough to show me its beauty.

[ANTO]

This is beautiful painting in words Marie - Never having been to a desert your writing really makes me feel like I need to put visiting one of my bucket list -if only to see this display of many colours. Thank you for that.

[Marie]

I've seen desert land, but not as much as I would have liked.

[jacob erin-cilberto]

a coat of many colors, a poem of perfect images to make us feel we are there seeing it ourselves.

[Marie]

Thanks; that's what I hoped for...

[Woody]

your poems are by themselves paintings and then you add a picture and it becomes a work of art.
another sumptuous one, Marie.

[Marie]

THanks. Sometime I wish I were a real artist who could paint the desert...

[Jimmy Yetts]

A many-colored coating.
Masterly word-painting,, Marie!

[Marie]

Thanks. THe desert isn't all dust and sand.

[Michael G.]

A very colorful, and accurate write. You made me see it in my mind, Marie. Well done.

[Marie]

Thanks. I didn't know if it was appropriate to this time of year or not.

[Michael G.]

I don't see why not, Marie. As a writer, (and a very good one at that) you aren't restricted to write about a season in other seasons. If so, I would be in great jeopardy. I liked your reference to David and his multicolored coat. He was certainly familiar with how deserts looked.

[Marie]

I wasn't sure everyone would be familiar with the reference.