15th-Page-Creative writing class-one page at a time during the pandemic

A new start, here I am amidst my greatest masterpiece for trying out this assignment something happens to wreak havoc on my success. Isn’t life like that, though? Indeed it wasn’t easy for many writers and painters in our historical past that somehow started with a less than desirable piece to create. I’m thinking of the great artist and poet Michelangelo. He was very particular in choosing his stone/marble to sculpt. In the case of the marble stone Michelangelo used to sculpt the famous statue called ‘David’, he used old worn-out marble abandoned for more than
40 years, which was ugly and weakened but this very marble turned into the most famous masterpiece.
(Mussio, 2015).

Thinking about how history exists in archives, in buildings, in this platform now will be history soon. Time doesn’t exist in the Milky Way. Space is but a geometric, chemistry equation that even
between the distances among stars, we can find worlds hide within its darkness the very reality
of light within the artists’ soul. I think of this kind of space when I read Leanne Simpson. I
wonder if Michelangelo and Simpson can relate to fire and their art, what kind of dialogue would
they have?

"“You are here, because you’re in my heart
You are here, because you’re my witness
There are long rays of deepening sun
There is flat blue
Lake wearing prairie
Seed inseminating lake
We’re in my canoe
In my head you built our fire

In real life I fed it my way
i fell grains and tobacco to lake
the long rays of deepening sun
kiss each duck and goose before they leave.” (P 73 Simpson)
Simpson, Betasamosake Leanne. “This Accident of Being Lost” (2017). P. 75 III Stealing Back
 Red bodies. House of Anansi Press Inc. 

The two contrasting artists are vastly different, and yet, they speak of fire. They speak of space—
the beauty of worlds between thought and hand that leave marks behind for us to view.

When I think of Jake’s exercise of writing the cheesiest love poem and the saddest poem, I think
of an overload of bad words thrown together to make an easy poem. I understand that is not the
case; however, whenever Jake gives us an assignment, I find myself writing from a place I didn’t
believe existed. Perhaps I found my self-portrait through cheesiness? Thinking of self-portraits,
my grandmother in Spain had her self-portrait done by a street artist. I wonder where that
painting went when she died. It was beautiful, the street artist captured parts of her she never
shared with us. Wrinkles on her face, her lips pursed, her intense gaze. He even painted crinkles
on her red blouse and ensured he painted the tint glow of her hair.

When my son was four years old, my sister sent us a child’s easel with paint. I looked at my son
and told him to draw himself. When he finished, he showed me his self-portrait. He painted a
cross with Jesus on it and a blue sky. I looked at my son and said, my goodness Benjamin, you
drew Jesus. He ran off the chair to play with his Lego. I stared at his painting bewildered. We
don’t know much about things until we face trials. My son somehow felt the desire to paint Jesus
on the cross; little did I know we both had to carry a heavy one three years later.

It seems a theme in my life of trials that needs attention. My laptop bottom charger hole broke on
the inside. It is the last few weeks of school, another mountain deserving of climbing. I was sick
before that. I am typing on an old laptop. I feel blessed by it, but the keys are not the same
consistency:

Mountains are meant to be viewed from across
The way one views between people
The taller the height the greater the view
The shorter the stare can be painful for you
Have you really looked at a problem that had no solution?
Accept to endure it until you find your way through
I think of these things when I cannot see you
It doesn’t matter how far apart we are
There are no mountains great enough that I cannot cross
To find you, you see my son that is how much I love you.

Instructions: Braid them together:
I am enamored by your beauty
The slice cut deep into my mother’s heart
Holding unto the gift you gave me
I held my baby the second we part
Your blood pumps in my veins
Shed joy true happiness
I cry at the explosion
Lost from the start
Your love plunges me
Where you breathed your first
Deep
I lost you
Abound with you I make it passed the constellation
Here in my arms you lay
Where sound, sight, touch and taste, embody me full that I am runneth over
Birth and loss it seems the same day