The circle of men crowded the museum
for the first time in five years to judge
the work of art. They gathered around
the work by Jack after
the curators of
the museum had promised Jack that
every color,
every edge,
and blur could possibly lead to
his own exhibit.
For they claimed they were the
experts
of fine art, and they had much
to say on the piece
the curators had placed.
One man stood up from a bench,
and said, “It looks the same as
the piece he’d painted
eleven
years ago. What a piece of … “
“Junk,” said another as he pulled
out his pocket watch to check
the time, and a boy walked by.
“I’ve never seen anything like
that,” the boy said.
“Do you call that art?”
The man cleared his throat,
and turned back to the piece
Jack had painted only nights ago.
“His piece had black lines
on a sheet of paper eleven years
ago. I swear I remember it like
yesterday.” They debated
just as men did when they
questioned why coffee
couldn’t just be
in a simple cup
and come out of a
simple machine
like it did
some twenty years ago.
The first man, among the experts,
slapped the back of his hand
into the other and said,
“My granddaughter can
make art better than this …
why, that’s all it has …
a six-year-old’s
qualifications.”
But I guess it never matters
what type of art Jack or the
others create. Viewers will
see and believe only what
they wish to as if they’re
six, and believe in the tales
told at story time.
The circle of men crowded at the museum
missed the most beautiful view of Jack when
the bright pink at the very top showed his
daughter, Corrie, skipping in a skirt, and
the gold lines over the white were the
champagne stars upon that skirt. In the
neon greens that the experts said
he’d simply splashed across was the
field where she’d helped her father
clear the debris from a tornado
that left metal twisted
and tangled in the trees.
In the blue of the paint, the experts claimed
Jack showed no art at all, yet while they
favored the art with Jesus Christ on a
crucifix, they never observed the man
they wished, within their souls, they
could be
when he walked to the podium
to speak about
his daughter
at her funeral.
The men claimed that the
purple lines in the paint showed a
six-year-old’s
qualifications.
They failed to view Jack, who has
picked up and organized
layers of bricks and dirt
for a memorial garden
with purple flowers
just for his little girl.
Corrie's Season 