John J. McKenna’s most recent poem to appear here was “Shadow Keeper” (October 2017)

I am left to different brush and palette
By John J. McKenna

I can neither sing
nor music play
nor paint

I.
If I could sing
I would climb up and perch
alongside the feathered ones
who greet great morning of the East
and to dusk branch as well I would climb
and join the chorus facing West to sing thanks

finch, sparrow and fish crow
red throated hummingbird, white eyed vireo and back capped chickadee
would know me as brother

II.
If I could play music
I would sit beside brook and sea, upon stones high
pinnacle and precipice
and gather and gift,
from water and willow
wind and wave,
notes new and olde

ancient Celts, wandering tribes
Bach, Brahms
Debussy and Dylan
would know me as kin

III.
If I could paint
to forest primordial emerald and to ocean azure
field frolicking in sunned Wild Cosmos lifting to its cousin Gaillardia of mountain ridge above
to hand and hair and eye and heart of child mother father sister brother nanna poppa

I would to my steady placed canvas
mix colours with tears
so Modigliani and Schiele and Van Gogh
would know and recognize my weeping as shared and their own

IV.
since I can do none of these things
I will instead do what it is I can

I will rise early and face East
I will remain late beneath the Western sky under night drape of star lit majesty
beside window, sash removed
at simple table
my tablet and pen
and candle to remind that I am still home and awake, in wonder and wait
to greet her

I will write of and for you
where Donne and Byron
Shelley and Blake
Dylan and Whitman
may ghostspiritspectreinspireriseecho—pause their wandering
listen touch and hold too my pen as their Brother Son  

V.
When it is that I pause
And am altogether still
unmoving transfixed unflinching
one foot steady in grass and sand and stone
the other lifted poised to meet sky steps ascending

when it is that I tell you that you are “beautiful”
please of it know
that this, these words are the tools of my art,
only and All that I am capable