an Edinburgh studio where tea is laid,
two extra cups for artist and viewer,
and a mirror that reveals
imagination's further halls and doors;
Paris, where brilliant fireworks
blooming above the Champs Elysies
are marveled by the artist's teacher
but ignored by the elegants
on the promenade.

Look, look, the artist says.
See as my teacher taught me to see;
see First Woman, her breasts,
the apple of forbidden fruit.
See the sweat-slick radiant bodies
of lifesized, naked dancers
unlocking Eden, their joyous nudity
shedding Victorian prudery
like layers of tight clothes.

See the effortless luminance of Loch Ness,
the ragged, purple Highlands,
the broken, wind swept shores.
In Scotland beauty comes easy.
There is a Fauvist* within all of us;
unlock the wild. See as a child sees,
with an artist's eye, the awe
of someone looking for the first time,
but every time.

*Fauvists-the wild beasts of early modern painting