What I Want to Say
Well, I was playing, see,
in the shadow of the tabernacle.
I was decorating mud pies
with little brown balls
I found scattered on the ground
like nuts, or berries.
Until some big boy came walking by
and laughed. “Hey,
don’t you know you’re puttin’ goat doo
on your mud pies? I bet
you’re gonna eat ’em, too!”
That day I made a major error
in my creative life.
What I want to say is this:
I liked those little balls
on my mud pies. I was a sculptor,
an artist, an architect. I was
making pure design in space and time.
But I quit
because a critic came along
and called it shit.
From The Patience of Ordinary Things (Amherst Writers & Artists Press, 2003) by Pat Schneider. Copyright © 2003 by Pat Schneider. Used with the permission of the Estate of Pat Schneider.
Pat Schneider
Schneider is the author of ten books of poetry and nonfiction, as well as both plays that have been shown in three hundred productions and libretti, such as The Lament of Michal, which was performed at Carnegie Hall.