Poem about JensArt

I first met John Pinkerton a couple of years ago at the Celebration of Fine Art show in Scottsdale, AZ.  John is well known throughout the tent by all the artists--visiting the show many times during our 10 week stint.  If he likes your work, he will inevitably write about it.  John is a very talented Wordsmith.  Though he himself doesn't paint with brush and canvas, he creates beautiful masterpieces through the magic of words. His writing can make a person cry!  I know from experience.  This is a poem he wrote with me in mind after a particular rainy day at the show:

Jen's Art

To see reality in an instant,
To feel it undulate with light
Caterpillar to chrysalis to Monarch
To feel colors exploding in your cornea,
To see a happy artist skipping bye
These are the transcendent moments,
The exquisite passages when brightness
Converts shadows, sunrise lifts gray shades.
These set you up, set you apart,
Bring you in, and stir something deep
Within you bewildered but happy,
Amused but intrigued, suspicious
But delighted by the tiniest details,
Textures, crevices, and brushstrokes
Imagined, intended, and designed for you
To capture and caress, literally, with fingertips
To know fully that magic can be real
That everything changes and it always will.
All the time you, mesmerized with awe,
Stare long and gingerly touch like a tyke
On Christmas morning, the artist smiles
She makes you feel at home, with her
In her temporary studio, where you sit
In a red leather sofa and fully relax.
Far away from the mundane crowds
Who bustle all around the booths,
She converts you readily and pleasantly
And captivates you firmly but sweetly:
See.  Do you see?  Look at it now!
She smiles coyly and confidently, like one
Who takes your hand and leads you up.
The rheostat slides, the lights dim with dusk;
It slides again, and the lights make colors dance.
In seconds, nature transforms before you:
Touch me, the painting sighs, Know me.
I'm as real as you are, you see. Feel me.
I change to become, like you, more flexible,
Unpredictable, variable, crafty, and sly.
I am fleeting like a Monarch's saffron wing
Beating in rhythm to nature's winds and
Resting only when you breath and ponder
With quiet, meditative awe, without thinking
And without pause, before darting, transformed
From where you transfixed me, into the tall trees.
Don't leave me, you gush.
I won't,  I reply.
Come back to me, you cry.
Someday, I will.
With a coquettish smile, the Fairie Queene turns.
With a flick of her wrist and a tell-tale wink, the light shifts.
The background becomes foreground; it's time to move on.
Glancing backward, you re-enter the throng but look back.
Ebulliently joyful, she pirouettes to meet and greet others.
When you realize how much her art transforms you, she's gone.

--JSP  Feb 2010