Finger Painting

Finger Painting

Because I had jubilant splashes

of wine-red, purple, tangerine, mauve,

I could fling them at a page –

my hands wet and gushing,

my arms dripping, up to the elbow.

Because I had paints made from plants

and dyes mixed from various muds,

and huge flat leaves and plaited reeds,

I could sit or stand or lie full length

creating chaos, covering it with patterns.

Alone inside my engagement, enraptured,

I swished and swirled and scraped and piled

colours on colours, on reed or leaf,

shaping them this way and that

with my will, with my hands … like a god.

Prompted by Poets United's Midweek Motif ~ Colour, and based 
on the poem (at that link) The Art Room by Shara McCallum.