Linda Lerner | Painting with Sun

Photo by Paul Frangipane, Brooklyn Paper

Painting with Sun

On watching people paint: Black Lives Matter. Joralemon Street, Downtown Brooklyn. Late June, 2020.

struck by the sight of people holding
long poles, rollers at the end,
dipped into what surely must have dripped
down from the sun into buckets,
wipe sweating foreheads, stare at
color too bright for just paint,
can’t see the words it overshadows,
people, so old they can barely manage
the poles, young kids struggling with
something bigger than themselves,
every color of the spectrum visible
to a crowd transfixed by this joyous scene
before the words, they won’t forget.


______________________________

Linda Lerner is the author of 17 poetry collections, including her most recent, When Death is a Red Balloon (Lummox Press, 2019, Takes Guts and Years Sometimes, and Yes, the Ducks Were Real (NYQ Books, 2011, 2015). Her poems currently appear or are forthcoming in Maintenant, Paterson Literary Review, Gargoyle, Home Planet News, Cape Rock, Piker Press, Chiron Review, Free State Review, and Rat’s Ass Review.

Photo by Paul Frangipane, Brooklyn Paper