Analysis of Portrait of an Artist

Posed in a picture frame
Portrait of an artist
Inquisitively fixed
Focused, reading a book

Silhouette of silence
Vested in red jacket
Knees crossed to hold her frame
Adorned, with boots of comfort

Befitting a maiden
Astride a wicker armchair
This portrait of an artist
Now framed above a lampshade

A lampshade at my bedside
At 15 Autumn Way
In Ledyard, Connecticut
Placed in New London, Connecticut

And in this sanctuary
In a poet’s quietude
Quartered by a front door
She beckons me as visitor

Her guest for two or three days
In company with her
This child artist — in silence
Invites me to observe

She is an adept of silence
Resolved in concentration
The portrait of an artist
A young girl posed — in reading

Reading, reading, reading
And I, in solitude digesting
What she must be digesting
For me — mere imitation

And in this imitation
In my fertile imagination
This portrait of an artist
 Becomes vividly alive

Now mingling with my brain cells
Ferociously multiplying
Firing, firing, firing
Like a Big Bang explosion

Meme-like brain cells firing
To share this composition
A gilded wooden portrait
Of a child artist reading

Framed above my bedside
At 15 Autumn Way
In Ledyard, Connecticut
The portrait of an artist

The silhouette of an artist
The portrait of a young girl
Posed yesterday — seen today
Forever etched in my mind.