Page C11

New Arts Funding

By Arlon Staywell

RICHMOND 1998 — Look me straight in the eye (when you get the chance) and tell me you never drew a picture of a house and a tree on hills in the sun when you were a small child.  I think you did.  And was that not your raison d'être since?  Simple truths can be so disarming.
    Not to be defined by too simple a discipline, even with such a simple and honest basic idea, several metric feet are used here that are considerably more complicated and difficult.  See whether you can find their definitions in a dictionary.

        A House and a Tree on Hills in the Sun

    You went to a desk and sat in the chair
    And there put the dream to paper with flair
    A house and a tree on hills in the sun
    Where children would laugh and play and so run

    The inks had so missed the hue of the lawn
    Too close to the rock and street wasn't drawn
    To some other time you left the repairs
    Were caught up in more pressing cares

    Some papers and inks I'd have given you
    for bettering dreams and making them true
    I prayed for that dream, that God give you one
    A house and a tree on hills in the sun

© MCMXCVIII by Arlon Ryan Staywell