Metanoia

Columbus Zoo

         Columbus Zoo

Let’s go to the art museum, I begged my resistant kids.
We can visit the zoo tomorrow.

Animals in cages. It’s not as if they are in their natural habitat.
Much better to help my children discover true art.
They must see the impressionist exhibit,
“From Matisse to Monet,” before it moved
to another museum. So they wanted to see the baby
gorilla and the baby elephant! We could do that any day.

It was a small museum.
The paintings were breathtaking.
Framed appropriately, spaced carefully.
On exhibit.

Each in their own cage.

My seven year old son reached to touch
the vibrantly textured impressions of life.
I cautioned him to stand back. Art is to
look at, I reminded him.

Don’t touch.
Don’t feed the animals.



I tried to draw my teenage daughter to Monet’s paintings.
I wanted her to see what I saw, experience what I felt.
I tried to express the texture of my emotion
in the flat symbols we call words.

“Don’t analyze so much,” she stated emphatically.

How could I tell her what I was trying to share with her?
I didn’t want to analyze the paintings. I wanted to
impress them on my soul, to crawl within the
landscapes and become them – feel the wind blowing
on Monet’s sunflowers, hide under the weeping willow
in the incredible depth of greens he had created.

I would not cage the artist’s work.

The children quickly tired of simply looking.
We found our way to the main floor kid’s exhibit.
Paper and markers soon enabled my son to create
impressionistic artwork of his own. Dress-up clothing
made to match the attire in the Dutch master’s painting’s
upstairs, hung upon the wall. Excited exclamations
accompanied creative impulses, expressed as long frock
coat and dress came to life and my son and daughter
became a painting in motion.

Art roams free.