She, artist who faced cold, fierce
Russian winters, Siberian epoch,
is my enigmatic muse.
To her, about her, because of her
I write.

Paint flows from her brush
and I can taste the over-ripe
dripping strawberries,
waiting to be set on
a piece of sharp cheddar.

When I have any form at all
of communication with her,
words flow from my fingertips,
and I can feel inspiration welling up
like a deeply-tapped spring.

Sometimes it’s gentle, like the tender petals
of Spring’s first flowers pushing
through the snow.
Sometimes it’s fierce, howling, raging
gusts of blasts that we both have faced
looking Northwest over the horizon.

Sometimes it’s confusing, the way
a late winter turns bitter
cold, then warm and melting,
then evening’s gentle, giant snowflakes
falling.

Rarely, once, even, it’s like a warm,
gentle summer afternoon,
lying in a field,
arms folded behind my head,
looking up at clouds,
dreaming of what could be,
who I could be,
poet going from village
to village, improv.

Even that word, improv,
sounds Russian.
And she gave me that vision,
that dream,
those floating, dancing clouds,
that idea,
that faith.

She has, again, opened her
box of paints,
created strawberries, ripened
and ready.

Perhaps I should follow
her example,
open my
mouth,
and create verbal visions
where none exist,
on a canvas of air
and soundwaves.