top of page
  • Sarah Van Arsdale

April 25, 2022

On Learning to Paint



More often than not, I’ve simply stood

in dumb awe at the world,

unmoving, unable to speak, a gasp

held tight in my chest.

Near my heart.

But now, I load my brush with cobalt,

red cadmium, opera pink, umber.

There’s a method for painting anything:

feathered wings of jays,

bark of a willow tree,

scales of an angelfish.

But not for things that have no shape or mass:

the needle-thin ring of the wind chimes

or my sister’s laugh.



2 views0 comments

Recent Posts

See All

Prompt: a duplex, per Jericho Brown The air so still it makes my heart thrum. I can hear the strumming robins’ wings as they dart and dip beneath the dippling lilac bough that came down in the storm,

On Writing a Novel If I knew how to write a novel, it would be about two sisters in a big, fractured family. They’re in the middle. One tries, all her life, to understand the other. She thinks of her

prompt: (created by myself): one line poem Waterproof Hiking Boots I wish mine were.

bottom of page