Finding Art

The chair is brittle from not being yours
for most of it’s life, left to dry out in an abandoned attic
before being released as something not worth owning,
and that is how it came to you. You saw something different.
Less a chair and more art. Less a practical partner for the home
and more something precious and bright. You painted it
but each brush stroke felt more like an uncovering
than new layers, revealing what you always felt was there
when every owner before thought it was not worth
the time spent understanding it’s color, only aware
of it’s brittleness, not it’s beauty.

About this poem

Sometimes my art inspires my poems. Sometimes my poems inspire my art. At times, for me, it is hard to tell one from the other.

A poem about the chair, which I made art. A love poem. A poem about seeing. Poetry is rarely about one thing.

The picture is of a chair I made art, “Joseph’s Throne”. You can see the whole chair here.

Tom