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I saw a boy who drew in a notebook

with pencil on some college paper, lined.

I stopped and leaned and took a sidelong look

at what his imagination defined.

I saw da Vinci scribbling away,

his masterful inventions being drawn.

I wondered, all the rest of that strange day,

where his own boyhood drawings might have gone.

I saw a box that said it held the best

of all the art that anyone could name,

and saw both boy and master in its nest,

and saw that they were both treated the same.

But that which loved both crude and masterpiece

was that which priggish judgment caused to cease.

~~~

It’s hidden where no-one will ever tread

inside a building that I built alone

and furnished by the hands within my head

by hammer and by nails through skin and bone.

Inside, no-one will ever see what’s there,

not tools, not stock, not even a bed frame.

But something lives there though the rest is bare

that likewise fits the needs of man the same.

It’s in what some call primacy of place,

where every eye would look (if they could see)

and where it would reflect on every face

what was the most important thing to me.

Within a humble house no-one will see

there is a painting there of you and me.