Kindergarten Picture

Lace around the collar
On embroidered dress of green
Rows of tiny daisies
Tucked and scattered sleeve to sleeve

A bow ...perhaps a daisy
Held sectioned hair that day
For a kindergarten portrait
Taken miles and miles away

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Were you ever sad I wondered
Or perhaps a bit afraid
I rarely painted you with smile
It was the price I paid

There were days that lingered longer
Still others would not end
As the unknown girl created
Lived in my world pretend

Skillfully I shadowed you
In pastels and in brights
And sometimes evening hours
Turned slowly into nights

If I might have known your happiness
If I might have watched you grow
My heart and all the love it held
Would have had a place to go.

Jeanne a.k.a. "Mary"

Beyond the Canvas is a compilation of photograph/painting comparisons with poetry, depicting a little girl placed for adoption in 1966 ... who grew up on canvas. As an artist she processed, through painted portraits, a silent longing for her estranged child. When the two met as women in 1993, Susan saw for the first time the daughter she had only imagined for nearly three decades.