Branch 1: The Pretty Painter Girl

Branch 1 (and maybe 4): The Pretty Painter Girl

          I have been finding my way back into poetry, or at least finding more time to and for that place.  I have been compiling my work and prepping for the goals of working publication objectives.  In my compilation I have two pieces where I was traveling and I saw, meet, or experienced something to write about.  It has been a long time since a piece like that has be drawn out of me.
          Today, I was having a terrible journey home.  Tickets, money issues, bus riding...  Finally, I got to the train.  Even then, I could not find a table, a solitary seat, or someone interesting to sit by.  Eventually, I found a chair and wandered to the back car to get something to eat.  On the first try, I saw a young girl who had here entire art painting supplies (including a canvas) strewn all about.

She had her ear buds in and was painting a beautiful pastoral scene.  I ventured to that back car a few times to check the food line and to see how the girl's painting was coming.  Finally I tapped her on the shouldered, waited for her to take her ear buds out and asked her if I could take a picture of her for my blog. (I've thinking of adding a branch 4 for artists I meet.)  I complimented her painting, did not make much conversation, and headed back to my seat.  And then it hit me.  I have two poems that I have written in similar moments of inspiration: Girl on a Grey Hound ( http://www.facebook.com/notes/cid-galicia/girl-on-a-grey-hound/10150431170447407 )and an untitled piece.  It's a reoccurring theme I find in my poetry.  The traveling on tracks or poems about bus settings. Here are the setting I experienced today.

 So between the girl and the two above settings, here is the rough draft of the piece I wrote today:


Tracks Again

Tracks again
and tunneling,
time turns and waits turns
and waits.
As we pass trees
blowing pushes

thoughts through parts of tracks
through parts of trees
through the window and
gusts into the woman painting.
Pressed bottles upon the seat tray
pressed water cup
pressed brush strokes
pressed thoughts from the outside air
through her brush hands into
and against me.

And as the turning train tumbles
across tracks and into my steps
my eyes stop my body
stop my thighs and feet.
And silently I ask her
to take the music out of her ears
step into the air pushing through her window
and her sense of traveling self
from her feet to my feet
from painting hands to hands of writing.

An ebbing push
that turns and waits and
turns and waits.