You may know that in addition to my artwork I also write poetry (posted on my blog Claudia McGill Writes Poetry, Did You Know That?). For the next several months I will be posting here a combined art/poetry project, Large Artist Sketchbook 2020.

I fill up sketchbooks with all kinds of art. Some contain images only and some of them I use the images as inspiration for poetry. In these books the image is on one page of the spread and the poetry on the other. This book is set up in this manner.

I’ll show you the image and then add the poem that goes with it. See what you think.

Inheritance

This little house
side-scraped by wire-branch trees
balances on a boulder pile
hanging high above purple lines of seawater
listens to the waves slosh around the basin
it sits on the edge of
a circle three thousand or more
east west miles and edged by ruined cliff
Staked into place by the
infinite lines beginning at the center
and radiating out to end up here
whose name no one knows
and
it doesn’t matter anyway because

Nobody comes here
ever
except for the cool blue night sun
that every evening
sits down in the sky to keep watch
arranging a yellow-green cloud
over the house
like a warm blanket

and you. It’s for you
and you say:

Oh this little house is
exactly
what I need.
Thank you.

4/23/20
Large Artist Sketchbook 2020 image 23