Poetry Magazines - The best collection of poetry magazines online - Simon Armitage

Once I sat upon a rocky outcrop,
Staring at the mist with eyes unmoving;
It was like a grey primed fabric stretched out,
Covering the world both down- and side-ways.

Somehow by my side a boy was standing,
Saying: Friend, how come you let yourself thus
Watch with staring eyes this empty fabric?
Have you let all skill and joy in painting
Carelessly be lost, perhaps forever?

Looking at the child I thought in secret:
Does this kid imagine he can teach me?

If you wish to stay thus dull and idle,
Said the boy, then nothing bright will happen.
Look! I’ll quickly paint a picture for you,
So you learn to paint a lovely picture.

Saying this he pointed with a finger
Pink as any rose, across the mist-screen.
With his finger he began to sketch now.

At the top he set a sun in splendour,
Suddenly so bright my eyes were dazzled;
And he made the clouds’ soft fringes golden,
Let wide shafts of light pierce through the cloud-wrack;
Painted next the delicate new tree-tops,
Fresh with their new leaves, and then drew freely
Hill that followed hill into the distance.
Down below he put no lack of water,
Drew the river in such living likeness
That it seemed to glitter in the sun’s rays,
That it seemed to roar in its deep gorges.

Ah, there stood sweet flowers along the river
And in every meadow lovely colours:
Gold, enamelled glaze, and green, and purple –
All like emerald, or like carbuncle!
Bright and pure he varnished in the heavens
And the distant mountains, blue with farness –
Till I, utterly enchanted, new-born,
Gazed now at the painter, now the painting.

Have I then persuaded you, he asked me,
That I understand this craft a little?
Yet the hardest part of all awaits us.

Thereupon with care, and using just one
Finger-tip, he sketched, right down beside the
Little wood, just at the border, where the
Strong sunlight reflected from the bright earth –
Delicately sketched a perfect woman,
Altogether lovely, dressed most gracefully,
Cheeks fresh under wind-blown, tumbling brown hair –
And I saw her cheeks were the same colour
As the finger that so deftly sketched her.

Child, astonished, I exclaimed, what master
Taught you with such utter ease this mastery –
So that all you try at once you get right,
Clever both at starting and completing?

Look! for as I spoke a gentle breeze has
Stirred the air and bent the sun-lit tree-tops,
Wrinkled every surface on the water,
Filled the veil of that most perfect woman –
And, to make me even more astounded,
She begins to move her feet and starts to
Cross the gap that keeps her separate from
Where I sit beside my shameless teacher.

Everything, now, everything was moving,
Tree-tops, branches, river, flowers, and the
Veil and delicate feet of that dear woman.
Do you think that I remained unmoving,
There upon my rock, restrained and rocklike?