So first, you imagine the light bulb,
he says, then he draws one on the page
so I won’t have to imagine too hard.
And then, he says, you draw a dark line
under the object, assuming that there
will not be much light underneath it.
He moves his pencil forcefully
to darken the bottom of the square.
Next, he says, you move your hand
as far from the light as possible
and make it darker there.
I watch as he fills in the spaces
where white has been.
There is something vital
in all of us that leans toward the dark.
I notice the depth that the shadows
have brought to the page, so like the shadow
into which we are pulled and pulled.
Even now, the darkest parts of us
are kindling our greatest light.
Ooolala, a lesson in drawing and in poetry in the same place! That “he says” that peppers the stanza all the way up to where the speaker enters the poem and notices how to bring the drawing lesson into life, well, that’s the ooolala.