the step sweeper reboot 2019

I wrote this in summer 2018.

I was happy with the individual drawings, but they were very inconsistent in style..

There were five pictures done in at least four different syles, so I revisited the whole a year later.

This page shows the results of the revisit. If you wanna see the originals click here (but please come back afterwards)

. . . and actually the poem is about the step sweeper’s daughter’s step sister.

I"m not a step sweeper

I’m a step-sweeper’s daughter,
but I have a step sister who sweeps steps with water.

she can sweep a steep step

with her step-sweeping broom and then mop it all dry and be finished by noon

she will

sweep and then polish the longest stair flight
’til the balustrades gleam, and the nosings are bright
’til the risers and landings and winders and newels
glisten and sparkle like so many jewels.

but you know

it’s essential to sweep before buffing?
Because once while daydreaming, her mind full of nothing,
She wet-swept a step she had already glossed.

the result

you can guess

was a frictional loss.

first slippy

then slidy and somersault-atious.
And bumpy (not glidy) and precipitatious.

she survived

she recovered and wiser. The fact is
she now does her work in a step by step practice.
She sweeps the stairs down, and then polishes up.

she's

the toast of the town and we all raise a cup
To the girl who sweeps steps with a style that’s unique –
Step-sister step-sweeper, now with stepwise technique.

footnote to mobile site . . . This note appears in a sidebar on computers . . .

I wrote this in summer 2018

I was happy with the illustrations but they were very inconsistent in style.