Of what use to mankind are Poets’ meaningless phrases
if readers can not understand?
Or Authors, who clothe all their characters’ feelings
in sentences far too grand?
Artists, who paint unfamiliar designs
in colours confusing our eyes?
Sculptors, whose metalized alien figures
no humans would recognize?
Potters, who mould unwilling cold clay
into vessels that hold only air?
Designers, who fashion ridiculous garments
that none but the boldest dare wear?
Architects, spinning their dream towers of glass
that expose all the people inside?
Woodcarvers, who richly embellish oak coffins
that none can afford when they’ve died?
Musicians and Singers, in beats electronic
playing rhythms to which we can’t dance?
Or Dancers, who sweat in contortions and motions
no music could ever enhance?
Performers in celluloid, mouthing obscenities,
transforming truths into lies?
Photographers, distorting, reshaping Nature
as seen through their cameras’ eyes?
Composers, whose music, too loud now, discordant,
lost its melody somewhere in space?
All those Spinners and Weavers of synthetic fibres
that wrap us in comfortless grace?
Instead, let me study such artistry pure
as the lace of a dragonfly’s wing;
Touch a new baby’s face; breathe the scent of a rose;
hear the songs that the wild birds sing.
Valerie Jeanne Palmer
