October 2016
Frederick Wilbur
fcwilbur@verizon.net
fcwilbur@verizon.net
I was brought up and still live in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia so I rely on imagery derived from the natural landscape to explore human relationships. My wife, Elizabeth, and I have two daughters and three grandchildren. I have been an architectural woodcarver for over 35 years and have written numerous articles and three books on the subject. My poetry has appeared in Shenandoah, Green Mountains Review, The Lyric, The South Carolina Review, Southern Poetry Review, and others.
The Straw
-for Jessica, preschool art teacher-
Quiet.
Three- and four-year-olds watch
their art teacher demonstrate the technique.
Then she squirts puddles of watercolor
onto each well-behaved square of white paper.
Their turn to blow the colors around,
even to oopsing over the edge.
They have to unlearn the instinctual
to understand the reverse of such a thing,
which is the essence of education.
She says they could be the rise of storm,
then the huff of wind, could be rockets
blasting off, the birthday girl or boy wishing on candles.
Some children surprise themselves
when the sequence is still mystery,
when they gag and drool yellows and greens.
Will they ever master this tool, the ins and outs of it, of life?
They show moms and dads their riot of consequence,
taped on the wall above their heads.
©2016 Frederick Wilbur
Editor's Note: If this poem(s) moves you please consider writing to the author (email address above) to tell him or her. You might say what it is about the poem that moves you. Writing to the author is the beginning of community at Verse Virtual. It is very important. -FF