Gardening is like a performance that is continuously changing, in and out of balance…,that people have to pay you for–to see it. Only if they cannot see to begin with you have to keep on performing until they do.
It is sort of silent, like a mime, too. And more invisible than the Mime’s performance, because no one even comes to see you perform. They only see the garden.
She teaches monotype and copper-sulfate etching with aluminum.
After reading my poem to an audience for the first time, I realize I will never be alone again. I will never think I have no voice. Speaking becomes hearing, and a friend who is standing right next to me, always there, and ready to encourage.
Repeat.
You are doing it. Never alone, though. Don’t worry. But you must speak on your own and use your voice. Then others join in. That is what the poets do. They are not speaking alone, but together.
A man on an island, stoplight towering above, crouches on an
overturned crate.
He wears a deep purple long-sleeve shirt under a bulky vest, and a
stiff pair of black jeans that cover his shoes. The vest’s
high collar protects his nose, but doesn’t hide claret-colored eyes
the same shade as wispy hair escaping
from a dark wool cap. Eyes like crevices full of settled seawater–
He pulls his head down into the inadequate warmth of his armor,
and peers calmly at the line of stopped cars. “Here is a knight, I think;
left alone after the storm–Set apart from his fellows.”
The light above turns (Christmas) green. Coils of electric energy spark
and fly inside a hollow metal tube that reaches for the stars.
Engines rev; people gear up for the turn–
I rush past in rush hour traffic, thinking, “There’s beauty everywhere.”
Susanne Smith 2010
Susanne M. Smith-Artist 