Artists In The Making Poem by Zoe Nyght

[Sweet birch trees, swishing
in the breeze, blushing
periwinkle hues spread across the sky and
fingers laced. Traced, backwards,
are the letters of the clouds
between two lips.]

Leaning against a tall oak tree,
the artist grunts,
searching for something in the stillborn sky.
To capture the horizon, the guava
passion of the sun, such beauty
too immense for simple eyes-
that would be her greatest dream.

Ahead,
the mountains brush the sky,
behind,
the oceans crawl to infinite-
reminding her of her place
(far below the endless atmosphere.)

Her eye for beauty
flushes pale pink between her ears,
residing there instead of
manifesting itself on paper -
she's crying wet blue tears
for her failure, and everything she can't afford to miss.
She'll try every day at dusk for the rest of her life
to capture the horizon, but somehow, it will always
so eloquently elude her.

Meanwhile, he waits, patiently hiding in
shadows and stubble,
listening, intent, to the breathing of her heart.
She is lost, in the passion, in the moment,
in the challenge. He observes, and with every click
captures a little bit of her essence,
revealed in the dark, his eye for beauty.

And she’s scribbling furiously,
she thinks they miss each other but
here they are
frozen in a moment
so when the sun has sunk into the distance
and their love has drifted away with the clouds,
when she’s thrown up her brush in frustration and
he quits carefully monitoring her progress,
they’ll have one blurred photo and one messy painting
to remind them of their beautiful, fingerpaint perspectives.