People Who Know How to Draw
June 21 2010


I will doodle, here and there.
Usually on the phone,
navigating message trees
by 1’s and stars and pound-keys,
to the tiny terminal bud
of enlightenment.
Mostly squiggles, and geometry.

I never draw
not since grade school,
my artistic development arrested
at stick figures, pencil tracing.
I am a medieval painter
who not only failed to grasp perspective
but the 2nd dimension, as well.

We were asked to draw a house,
and they all came out
with window eyes, door as mouth
smiling,
smoke, curling up.
A stick-figure dad out front
cadaverously thin,
who also probably smoked, back then.

We graduated to trees,
a swirl of green
brown crayon trunk.
Even the teacher didn’t think
beneath the surface
of the single family bungalow,
mom at home
dad, in his RoadMaster Buick.
Or that we all missed the whole other half
of the tree,
its vast network of roots
branching underneath.
Shade tree as palindrome;
as if planted
in a reflecting pool.

I grew up to be an environmentalist,
yet still forget about trees
living half their lives
subterranean.
And the suburb
of neat detached houses
sitting on dank cinder-block basements
drainage tile, septic bed,
even those who know how to draw
forget.