Painter at the Beach
In paradise I poised my foot above the boat and said:
Who prayed for me?
James Wright
"Father"
What they once were has sunk and become other eyes or throats, but only after they're broken and stirred, a scum skimmed or made thin. Once they've flocked and folded. Once they're turpentine mewl, and later, mute mixed blobs she tethers together stroke to stroke then over her bleached board and canvas: her whole wet cove of low fog or smoke. She opens sniffs each tube while folks she's known,
those boys and girls, step up to her and glow so begnignantly. They close the distance, smelling of balm, of salty pebbles, of shadow only these dead can muster. Nothing but her brush and a hand and that scent, and then not only a hand, but all what else is landed and clutched: like those salt-marsh nesting birds who’re hidden, always hidden in sand and roses. She paints those timid birds in winter, when
they're gone, the plovers and sandpipers, flocks she follows all summer through the goose tongue greens, that bog the side pools, while tides come and go and stand. She comes and watches, she waits while they peek and peck, she waits while they spook and swarm, she waits while they set and settle up the beach aways, always arriving in a hood in the rain. And she’s just eyes, and just fists in her ripped
pockets. And she’s been doing this for years: seeing them settle and rise, settle and rise, seeing them migrate before winter while the summer folks still unborn, a generation away maybe, are a smidge a bubble so far from forming, so far from being made, they might never ever, and the birds, the quick spooked birds pause before she touches (when the sun comes) the canvas with the brush, with the paint.
those boys and girls, step up to her and glow so begnignantly. They close the distance, smelling of balm, of salty pebbles, of shadow only these dead can muster. Nothing but her brush and a hand and that scent, and then not only a hand, but all what else is landed and clutched: like those salt-marsh nesting birds who’re hidden, always hidden in sand and roses. She paints those timid birds in winter, when
they're gone, the plovers and sandpipers, flocks she follows all summer through the goose tongue greens, that bog the side pools, while tides come and go and stand. She comes and watches, she waits while they peek and peck, she waits while they spook and swarm, she waits while they set and settle up the beach aways, always arriving in a hood in the rain. And she’s just eyes, and just fists in her ripped
pockets. And she’s been doing this for years: seeing them settle and rise, settle and rise, seeing them migrate before winter while the summer folks still unborn, a generation away maybe, are a smidge a bubble so far from forming, so far from being made, they might never ever, and the birds, the quick spooked birds pause before she touches (when the sun comes) the canvas with the brush, with the paint.
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