Jacob Stratman
We can't draw what we can't see
For E.S. and ART 2413: Drawing 1
After receiving bad news, I watch
kids draw still life: plastic paled fruit, dusty
bottles, leather boxes, lanterns with faux
finish, copper kettles, everything draped
in gilded maroon. Masked students circled,
spacious music spacing against sickness.
One holds a view finder, leaning
on her drawing horse, trying to avoid
men—flaky busts of Homer or Aristotle.
She has her eye on a clock next to oddly
shined apples. Another, off by herself,
circle adjacent, mines a paper bag landscape —
ridges and rifts, creases, cracks, crinkles,
valleys, vaulted lines separating shade and light.
We can all hear the woodpecker: deadwood
deadwood deadwood. Late winter branches
stretch up against darkening blue, waning
daylight. A few, near windows,
look hard, point in competing directions.
A turkey vulture floats above. Someone calls
it an eagle. Too high to differentiate
baldness. No one here knows what kills
trees from the inside, but we all know
eagles are visible for another month
or so, and we forgive the mistake.
Too many buzzards circling all the time,
you often wish for difference.
In silent breaks, circled and spaced,
on a cold, late afternoon when light
is lowering, we attend to what we can’t see
well—what we mistake for hope.
After receiving bad news, I watch
kids draw still life: plastic paled fruit, dusty
bottles, leather boxes, lanterns with faux
finish, copper kettles, everything draped
in gilded maroon. Masked students circled,
spacious music spacing against sickness.
One holds a view finder, leaning
on her drawing horse, trying to avoid
men—flaky busts of Homer or Aristotle.
She has her eye on a clock next to oddly
shined apples. Another, off by herself,
circle adjacent, mines a paper bag landscape —
ridges and rifts, creases, cracks, crinkles,
valleys, vaulted lines separating shade and light.
We can all hear the woodpecker: deadwood
deadwood deadwood. Late winter branches
stretch up against darkening blue, waning
daylight. A few, near windows,
look hard, point in competing directions.
A turkey vulture floats above. Someone calls
it an eagle. Too high to differentiate
baldness. No one here knows what kills
trees from the inside, but we all know
eagles are visible for another month
or so, and we forgive the mistake.
Too many buzzards circling all the time,
you often wish for difference.
In silent breaks, circled and spaced,
on a cold, late afternoon when light
is lowering, we attend to what we can’t see
well—what we mistake for hope.
Biography
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Jacob Stratman’s (he/him) first book of poems, What I Have I Offer With Two Hands, is a part of the Poiema Poetry Series (Cascade, 2019). His most recent poems can be found (or are forthcoming) in The Christian Century, Spoon River Poetry Review, FreezeRay, Wordgathering, Ekstasis, and others. He lives and teaches in Siloam Springs, AR.
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