Steve Berman Potery

If Artists Teach

If artists teach our eyes to see
with tenderness
with clarity
the world of forms
of colors
light
the aura that delineates
the distant hills
the human face,
a chair a table
sunflowers
and seeds

Then poets
show us where to look
among the leaves
for what unknowingly
we’ve left behind
or lost
or in the mirror
where the wolf
our nemesis
our other self
stares back at us
with angry face
yet pleading
save me say his eyes
and you will save
yourself as well

If artists show us
how to see
a sky with clouds
an empty field
then poets teach us
how to feel
the tender life within the child
that we were once
can still embrace
nurture and nurturing
may learn again
the innocence we knew
the joy we felt when all
the world was young

While artists paint and poets write
then even if museums close
and books are banned
the world will still
harbor the grace that gives us
eyes to see heaven within the flower
the angel in the faces
of the stranger
and the ones we love

Steve Berman
Grants Pass OR
September 22, 2020