Botticelli on the Train

 

Botticelli on the train

 

What a beautiful dream I had last night

A gathering of artists, in St. Petersburg

(not the one in Florida), a convention

Creators of illustrations

Foundation Art for Children’s literature

 

I went about the room, aglow, alight

With the beauty of images

Splashes of emotive color

 

And then, one artist in delicate,

Clairvoyant black and white drawings

As if planned to decorate a nave

Branched images, sacred evoking prayer

 

One a blossom of a lily, filling the central square

It burst with color, so ethereal that the hue

Filled your mind, but not the visual space

Lying on her desk . . .

 

Across the room on each table the artists labored

That labor of love, but still there was a fear

A fear that the humanity would implode/explode

With the war of breaking bombs

And breathless bodies of innocents

Outnumbering the combatant ogres

Violating the concept of compassion,

of piety of the pretense of  a good god

The power of destruction

Haunting the dream

 

These images of hope

To be placed in a book

With words to tell tales

Enlightening minds and bodies

To the health of living, living, living    

 

And yes, on the way to the show

Through the train window on parallel track

I saw Botticelli looking at me

Holy curiosity in his eyes

Venus in his heart                                           

   Dream of 3/18/2022  ©j.m.frase-white