She was artistic as a student, <br />sweet-natured, imaginative, not <br />overly ambitious; a good catch <br />for him, the fellow student with <br />the drive, the ambition, the great <br />family connections. <br /> <br />They married young; she did <br />what so many girl art students <br />have done: gave him all her <br />intelligent support, bore and raised <br />his children; and in the few brief moments <br />that she was granted for herself, took out <br />her student paintbox, and while the kettle boiled, <br />sat at the kitchen table, and beyond the view of washing-up <br />part painted that familiar view – <br />a jug of garden flowers on the kitchen window-sill.. <br /> <br />and when he left her for <br />another strong woman who, however, <br />sculpted the cutting-edge new abstract thing <br />she brought up his children by herself <br /> <br />and when they left the nest, and she, now older, <br />had more time to give to paint, <br />she returned - as so many artists do – <br />to that motif, for them an eternal reminder <br />of that moment when the exalted mind <br />sees, beyond the kitchen sink, <br />a glimpse of that great heavenly view <br />beyond the garden flowers, where <br />she could walk into that paradise <br />that eternally awaits <br />the sweet-tempered heart.. <br /> <br />and year by year, the modest <br />jug of flowers on the window-sill <br />became herself <br />and she <br />became that heavenly view <br /> <br />until the jug of flowers burst into glory <br />and she did what only ikon painters, praying, do <br />and gold and silver joined the rainbow paint <br />to point the way to an eternity <br />where kitchen sink’s now holy path; <br />that is more now than now <br /> <br />and she became, <br />the painting is, <br />a jug of Eden's flowers on a kitchen window-sill <br />and with all heaven in its sight<br /><br />Michael Shepherd<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/0008-a-woman-s-world/
