For the Figure Show

So already,  recently my husband Scott told me he'd dropped off his submission to Focus on Figures 2022, the North River Arts Society's annual juried figure show, which runs from April 9 to May 9. When I asked Scott if I'd ever seen the painting he chose to submit, he told me he was sure I had; if I looked for "Garden of Balls" on his website, I could see it again, he told me.

So I looked, thought, asked, looked again, put down some thoughts in words; and a few days later, wrote this poem entitled "For the Figure Show."

Garden of Balls 

Why this painting for this 

      show? 

Go figure, you’d say gently, 

Then let the question go.

 

Garden of Balls 

Why this title for this work 

Of thinned oil on vellum 

      spread

That offers neither plants nor 

      rows  

Nor flowers budding blooming 

      dead?

 

Garden of Balls? 

After brief reflection 

Since you’d judge the question fair,

You’d say without feigning, 

“I don’t think too much

When I name a painting.”

 

Garden of Balls

Why not Mother of Spheres 

Since bald heads stream

Between spread thighs

As Mother bears witness

Through downcast eyes?

 

Garden of Balls 

Is this First Mother Eve

Whose arms are pinned back

While she wrestles decree

Presses hard with her foot

And labors to be free?

 

Garden of Balls  

The choice you made

As I started dropping balls

That I juggle in this life 

One foot set in the silent

Garden of husband and wife. 

______________________

Note:  

On April 1, this poem ended with the following two lines:

What is the silent dance

Garden of husband and wife? 

On April 2, the poem ended this way:

One foot in the silent garden

Of husband and wife.