Sometimes you think back on a pivotal moment when, regardless of age or circumstance, you had some epiphany about the world. In this case I learned something about how the world viewed art, and about the price of compromising — or not — the truth.
Why You Should Label Your Diagram
Today’s sky is the sharp blue of a crayon
straight from the box, color every sky starts.
And the sun just as spikey as the one drawn
in the upper right hand corner, smiling down
on three ducks crossing a blue-gray stream,
outlined in plain brown, all hard strokes,
muscles straining against the waxy current,
beaks slightly open to show flat, white teeth.
One duck wears a white stripe down his beak,
which is otherwise mud-brown. The two
behind the striped duck each glare
a brown eye at observers, black
streamers trailing from their beaks.
Blue ribbon, this work. Or would have been,
had the artist not explicated: horses crossing,
not ducks. Their legs are beneath the river’s
surface, of course. Not wings folded back
but saddles. Artistic vision so clear, but
execution so poor. Are you sure?
A question those wah, wah-wah, wah, wah
adults might ask: The second grader nodded,
once, watched the silky ribbon re-destined.
Outside, under a too-blue playground sky, cerulean, she rode the first horse
up the blue-gray river bank—
and no, green grass wasn’t missing—
watched horse legs emerge, dripping
as expected, because everyone knew
horses couldn’t cross a stream without legs.
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