BREAKING RULES

"Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist." Pablo Picasso

Did you know that chickens can fly? Well, I didn’t until I saw them sitting in a tree after a thunderstorm. In my experience, chickens belong on the ground and some part of me still thinks that those chickens broke the rules when they flew into a tree.

The chicken experience got me to wondering about how many other things I grew up believing are “rules,” simply aren’t. Today’s poem is a bit about that.

BREAKING RULES

Watching the sun
melt the other day
into the frigid water
of the lake
all I thought about
was how backwards it
all seemed
blazing heat dripping
into ice cold water
defying physics and
lessons from an art class of
long ago where some
long-haired rimless glasses
professor pontificated about
the importance of the color wheel
determining nuances of tint
when mixing paint and
rules of gradation
when hues bump heads
and I saw for a fact that
rules are meant to be
shattered as that vibrant yellow sun
dipped into the azure water
creating pink, lilac, and lavender,
in defiance of that wheel
which dictates that yellow
and blue make green.