Drawing by Ronnie C., Grade One by Ruth Lechlitner

Drawing by Ronnie C., Grade One
by Ruth Lechlitner

For the sky, blue. But the six-year-
old searching his crayon-box, finds
no blue to match that sky
framed by the window - a see-through
shine
over tree-tops, housetops. The wax colors
only hold dead light, not this water-
flash
thinning to silver
at morning's far edge.
Gray won't do, either:
gray is for rain that you make with
dark slanting lines down-paper
Try orange!

-Draw a large corner circle for sun,
egg-yolk solid,
with yellow strokes, leaping outward
like fire bloom - a brightness shouting
flower-shape wind-shape joy-shape!

The boy sighs, with leg-twisting bliss
creating . . .

It is done. The stubby crayons
(all ten of them) are stuffed back
bumpily into their box.