Meeting an Artist
by Grant Shimmin
I only have 26 letters of the alphabet; I don’t have color or music. I must use my craft to make the reader see the colors and hear the sounds. - Toni Morrison
True artistry brings me to tears
I realise anew in the moments
I sit on bare timber
Stare at the concentration
Marvel at the intensity
Watch him feel the music
in a dimension removed
from here; heavy-booted,
yet precise and delicate
of touch on the pedals
Long thumbnail picking
Long silver ring helping fashion
a beat from the bent body
Fingers alive, across
pulsing string arteries
A broad gap-toothed smile as I
drop the lowest note
into a case scattered
with meagre rewards for artistry embodied
“Thank you, brother,” his eyes shine
My thumbs-up inadequate
to convey my emotions, my longing
to sit there all day; to express
my deep thanks for
translating to music
what I so want my words to be
Grant Shimmin is a New Zealand writer who grew up in South Africa and loves to theme work around humanity or the natural world, or both when possible. An editor at Does it Have Pockets?, he has work in journals including Roi Faineant Press, The Hooghly Review, Bull, Stone Poetry Quarterly, Querencia Press and Epistemic Literary.