The Painter
I am a writer.
And a poor one at that.
My perfect expression would be a painting.
I would be an old man, and I’d be near the ocean then.
It may be winter, but you couldn’t tell.
Not the way the sun is shining.
You’d see me there. Mostly you’d see what I’ve created. With luck it would draw you in, the centerpiece of a white, sunny, room, with hardwood floors and tiny grains of sand the wind had blown in for the occasion.
The occasion being every day, the circumstance being happenstance. My life’s work is just before those French doors I always wanted, open to the world- so unlike myself- taking in the sun. I’ve painted everything in front of me, everything my eyes can see. That ocean, the great white beach which stretches out to the great depths many fathoms below here, stretches out on my canvas. You wonder what took so long to bring me here, or why I waited if I always knew. I am not sad that it has taken this time, this distance to cross. Serenity is no mean feat, and as much as I loved her, clarity, the muse, is no willing bride. But these are my thoughts, maybe you see them within my brush-strokes, perhaps not. Idyllic, really, my palette. The blue waves of my youth, in a fury of highs and lows, crashing in to one another. The yellow glow of my love, sometimes blinding, other times hazy. The mist that holds close to shore, like so many tears, and too the grey breakers, in dreams they call to me, longing to take me home.
And there’s a sailboat on the ocean.
There are gulls on the wing, great white creatures whose cries fill your ears, noble foils, sonically speaking, to the low baying of the waves. These are the keepers of the time, the great clockwork of nature, days whirring by, sometimes fast, sometimes slow, over and under me, interrupted at times by the shrill cry of some crisis, real or imagined, somewhere above, or in the distance.
I imagine it as Lermentov did, happiness it shall not find, happiness it does not seek, my sailboat. That wind blows westward now. The great breath of life which carries all someday across the ocean, it blows that sail now, turns the bow towards home. You can imagine me clinging to that sail for dear life, wont to go as the wind did blow, basking in the glowing joy of a new day, praying at it’s mast amidst the storm, navigating by it, against the stars, wondering about the great many things the cosmos reveals on a clear night. A sign of the manifest destiny of life, that sail, progress sometimes, it seemed, despite nature, and too, a beacon of mortality, beneath the light of the moon.
I would be most pleased if you could see my life in that picture.
Feel every swell of the sea like my heartbeat. Share my sense of trepidation and invincibility as the many great battles and trials of my life played out on the open seas of distant worlds and times. Hopefully you share the wonder I once knew as I scanned the horizon, imagining love, and a future, in some not so distant port, some day.And if I were lucky, you’d never be quite sure of what was real about my life at all. But you’d be sure you felt everything you imagined about me, within your life and through yourself. It would be then that you realized this whole time you were staring at nothing more than a simple painting, a mere reflection of the world in front of you. But this work is a reflection upon me, and of my life; a canvas chronicling the worth of a soul, and everything else, too. And as you look out upon the horizon, scanning the years before you, perhaps you’d see the horizon of my years now past. And as you wonder about what great secret I’d come to find here, you’d see but a sail, slipping silently beneath the horizon.
The truth is within you, I promise. If you are willing to seek it out.
And a poor one at that.
My perfect expression would be a painting.
I would be an old man, and I’d be near the ocean then.
It may be winter, but you couldn’t tell.
Not the way the sun is shining.
You’d see me there. Mostly you’d see what I’ve created. With luck it would draw you in, the centerpiece of a white, sunny, room, with hardwood floors and tiny grains of sand the wind had blown in for the occasion.
The occasion being every day, the circumstance being happenstance. My life’s work is just before those French doors I always wanted, open to the world- so unlike myself- taking in the sun. I’ve painted everything in front of me, everything my eyes can see. That ocean, the great white beach which stretches out to the great depths many fathoms below here, stretches out on my canvas. You wonder what took so long to bring me here, or why I waited if I always knew. I am not sad that it has taken this time, this distance to cross. Serenity is no mean feat, and as much as I loved her, clarity, the muse, is no willing bride. But these are my thoughts, maybe you see them within my brush-strokes, perhaps not. Idyllic, really, my palette. The blue waves of my youth, in a fury of highs and lows, crashing in to one another. The yellow glow of my love, sometimes blinding, other times hazy. The mist that holds close to shore, like so many tears, and too the grey breakers, in dreams they call to me, longing to take me home.
And there’s a sailboat on the ocean.
There are gulls on the wing, great white creatures whose cries fill your ears, noble foils, sonically speaking, to the low baying of the waves. These are the keepers of the time, the great clockwork of nature, days whirring by, sometimes fast, sometimes slow, over and under me, interrupted at times by the shrill cry of some crisis, real or imagined, somewhere above, or in the distance.
I imagine it as Lermentov did, happiness it shall not find, happiness it does not seek, my sailboat. That wind blows westward now. The great breath of life which carries all someday across the ocean, it blows that sail now, turns the bow towards home. You can imagine me clinging to that sail for dear life, wont to go as the wind did blow, basking in the glowing joy of a new day, praying at it’s mast amidst the storm, navigating by it, against the stars, wondering about the great many things the cosmos reveals on a clear night. A sign of the manifest destiny of life, that sail, progress sometimes, it seemed, despite nature, and too, a beacon of mortality, beneath the light of the moon.
I would be most pleased if you could see my life in that picture.
Feel every swell of the sea like my heartbeat. Share my sense of trepidation and invincibility as the many great battles and trials of my life played out on the open seas of distant worlds and times. Hopefully you share the wonder I once knew as I scanned the horizon, imagining love, and a future, in some not so distant port, some day.And if I were lucky, you’d never be quite sure of what was real about my life at all. But you’d be sure you felt everything you imagined about me, within your life and through yourself. It would be then that you realized this whole time you were staring at nothing more than a simple painting, a mere reflection of the world in front of you. But this work is a reflection upon me, and of my life; a canvas chronicling the worth of a soul, and everything else, too. And as you look out upon the horizon, scanning the years before you, perhaps you’d see the horizon of my years now past. And as you wonder about what great secret I’d come to find here, you’d see but a sail, slipping silently beneath the horizon.
The truth is within you, I promise. If you are willing to seek it out.
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