Chalk
I'm a picture made of chalk
Drawn on the sidewalk,
A white powder
Poured on the black tarmac
And gray pavement.
I'm colored flakes of dust
Pressed into the ground,
Scraping against the rocks,
Carving an image into the surface
Of a parking lot,
Or some other vacant and spacious nowhere.
I'm a picture
Sketched by an innocent and naïve child
Who disappears—
Searching for someplace warm—
When the rain clouds cover the sky.
The rain dampens the streets,
Flushing it to a cool river
Flowing on the cemented pathways,
Guiding the flotsam
To glide somewhere else entirely.
I,
The etched smear of clay-like crumbles,
Soak in the reservoirs
Of rushing rain water
And I melt,
Streaking down the roads
In streams of diffusive tones.
I become a washed-out pool
Of stains.
The floor clears itself of me.
Then the sun comes out,
Crisping all the wet and battered land,
Frying the puddles into an evaporative sizzle,
And I,
The water drenched ash,
Am carried by the heat upward
Into the separating clouds—
Drained of their darkness,
Discharged of their electrical pulse,
And empty.
My illustration is gone,
Waiting to be drawn again
If only the child—
Or someone else—
Would be so inspired
To draw me....
poem by Tim Stensloff
Added by Poetry Lover
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