I've been dry as the ground, this season. The grass had
turned to straw and twine. Smoke billowed from a new hill every day and even the
deck wood and telephone poles looked thirsty on the backdrop of crispy beige
foliage, parched.
Crumpled and bitter, I've fought my tongue around every
corner. Thirsty, threadbare, and dried in drought, dust was all I could manage
to cultivate upon these lips, and from this weary heart, gasping.
And though I had better things to do, things that couldn't
wait, I pulled out the paint box and dirtied my brushes and smothered the
canvas large as life with paint and longing. It felt like air and space, so I
opened windows, then, and dotted frantic with the mix of pink and white, and I
was a fish, brushstroke by brushstroke, caught and released, and released, and
released, and released.
Children slept and hours passed, one and then another, dark
but for the colors on the canvas, and with the music swirling, I smelled it
strong and sudden. Struck with alertness like a whiff of strong coffee, I
recognized in the dryness the aroma of rain.
The ground opened to receive it and my heart opened to
receive it and I could breathe again, breath so full it tasted like color. I
swam. And the music and the rain and dust made painted fingerprints upon that
canvas where my soul spilled in splats and curves. I laid awake and watched it
fall until clouds and trees were backlit with foggy air and it's all still hanging
there this morning…a misty linger like even the air doesn't want to let go.
The TV tells me we'll be dry again in an hour but I plead
silent with my eyes to the sky like I'm pleading with a lover not to go, not to
go.
Don't go.
