Mary Trafford

Mary Trafford reads “A Drawing Lesson”

A Drawing Lesson

I remember the rules from childhood: blue sky above, brown earth below, colour in between, and, somewhere high up, a beaming yellow sun.

I follow the rules, discarding all I have learned between the brown earth of childhood and the thin blue sky of now, try to locate the random specifics of colour.

Trees, flowers, weeds, soil. They are all the same, I see, sprung from flat box of crayons, not the thought-out order of botany, but a rain of mayhem upon the page.

Colour. It’s all about colour. And where would I be without it: the soft silence of green sorrow; the heat-soaked steam of yellow joy; the daily routine of cinnamon, sugar, mud?

I remember the rules. Benevolent sky, falling in slow motion. Reliable earth, shuddering under me. Narrow, white gasps of air and the sudden, sweet turmoil of colour.

Bios

TBA

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