Artist

Artist

There is a little girl,
I can see her from my window clearly,
A little blonde-haired girl maybe 5 or 6 years old.
Sitting in her driveway, chalk spilt around her,
A piece of pink in her hand.
She’s drawing flowers,
Little bright spots in a sea of black.
When she wipes her face with the back of her hand,
It smears pink, blue, across her cheeks.
She draws a sun in yellow,
Slowly painstakingly,
Adds a girl in green beside it.
She signs it, with the hesitation
Of someone just learning how to spell their name,
But she is so proud when she has finished it.
I go outside to watch her more closely as she draws more:
A hopscotch court,
And starts to play,
Her masterpiece forgotten for now
Until someone comes home, someone to drag over and point out the art.
And I sit on the sidewalk and watch
The artist at work,
And she gives me a smile,
An exchange, one artist to another.
She points out her masterpiece and I write words beside it:
“This is beautiful.”
She smiles and nods, and turns back to her game,
Forgetting the world that has forgotten her.
Just a little artist,
In her silent lonely world.