Around Her Stretched The Mountains of Sand

“A Painter of Deserts” Bardic Poetry by Joseph S. Plum

Mar 21, 2024

Greetings and welcome to American Bardic Poet.

“A Painter of Deserts”

This week’s poem is one of the poems that are - what I like to call - free standing. It’s complete in itself and tells a beginning-to-end story. This particular poem is extra special to me because I learned it as a child and would often recite it to myself before I went to sleep. A painter’s prayer.

Good journey,

~Emily Lupita

(The poet’s daughter.)

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painter of deserts

a painter of deserts

labored for years

laying grain up grain

and tear upon tear

before the sun rose

and after the moon fell

she struggled not to struggle

or drop into hell

finally the artist finished

and she knew she’d done well

for around her stretched

the mountains of sand

all that had sprung

from the tips of her hand

all that she’d lost

and all that she’d found

reached up to meet her

and it pulled her down

as the ground rushed to greet her

with a sign and a thud

she tore her heart and

she lost her blood

which flowed across

the endless sand

to fill the portrait that

the painter called man

now the painter’s been gone

for many a year

though her paints and her brushes

both are still here

so begin in the middle

and end at the start

trust in your luck

and follow your heart

when you do this with ease

you’ve done your part

to give to yourself

what can’t be taught

the talent to turn everyday life

into a work of art

Artwork by Joseph S. Plum / Photo by Asa Plum

Read about the poet and the bees here.
Read my post regarding punctuation and editing of the poems here.
Read the poem “Wild Wisdom” and a short essay I wrote about the forest here.

This is a page from the book, I Believe in Seeds: Affirmations for Rewilding, made possible by a grant from the BeWildReWild Fund at Iowa Natural Heritage Foundation. This book combines my watercolor paintings with Dad’s poems, and gave me a chance to try something different with punctuation. Also, it was such a beautiful moment when Dad saw my paintings and realized his poems were part of his daughter’s artwork.

I’m grateful.

I’ll write more next week. Hope to see you again then. Please consider sharing this post with someone you think may be interested in Dad’s poetry.

About the Poet

Joseph S. Plum is a poet in the bardic tradition. He lives off-grid in rural Iowa and composes his unique chant-like oral poetry for fascinated audiences around the world. Joe has over 16 hours of oral poetry memorized in his head. He pulls from this collection of rhyming lines to compose poems according to the energy of the audience listening. Joe does all of this without writing the poems down on paper or holding any notes.

Joe’s daughter, Emily Lupita, typed up his poems over the years and launched Dreaming Deer Press to publish his work. He now has nine poetry books for sale on Amazon that can be purchased on Joe’s website - here.

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