to paint (like a master)

he wrote the brush
into his hand

within a paragraph
the palette

using easy phrases
he expressed
an easel

the white paper

a little discomfited
at his own pretentiousness
he included the description
of a splotchy smock
he saw himself wearing

a beret
no not that
but
a loose hat
to keep the sun at bay
in plein air

lyrically
lovingly
he wrote a landscape

foreground:
trees
background:
blue and purple hills

clouds across the sky

he paused
for a deep breath
like an Olympian diver
perched up
on the high board

then
momentum resumed
he wrote
in a fever

the colours
the hues
the brush strokes

the emergence
of a corner
of the center

of the borders

the way the random
transformed
into shape

depiction

and the picture
that he wrote himself painting
was beautiful

worthy
to be hung
in a public place
for viewing

at the last
he wrote himself
penning his name

the painters name
low down
in the left-side corner

and satisfied
he contemplated
how he might proceed
writing himself
a still life

a nude

perhaps a portrait

he wondered if
next time
he would do well
to write a broader palette
and a wider range
of colours

~

Poem #463 from a series of poems drawn from the imagination and collected as: a Bachelard reverie.