‘Poet Sitting with portrait of lady wearing palm frond hat she wove

Mar 13, 2009 1 min read

Art Poem by

Joe Pacheco and

Carol Rosenberg

Who will be first to break the pose

As we sit for each other on the lanai,

You with your palm or I with my poem?

Who will give first, like the artist who poured

Forlorn eternity into your eyes,

Who was the first to break that pose?

Loneliness too deep for smiles to fill,

Hurt too hard for a muse to heal,

You with your palm and I with my poem.

Staring at each other on the lanai,

Cataract implant versus painted eye.

Who will be first to break the pose?

What lies beneath the soft crown of fronds

Woven from dreams of what-might-have-been,

You with your palms and I with my poems?

Deadlocked in Art we sit with each other,

Two still lives yearning for animation,

You with your palm and I with my poem –

Who will be first to break the pose?

(Editors note: ArtPoems 2009 premieres at BIG ARTS on Saturday, March 14 at 1 p.m.)