Painting

Words take up my mind like a color rents out a room in a painter’s period. 

Words like ‘Tenderness,’ ‘Understanding,’ and ‘Unfasten.’

These are not words that would be bright colors, or very dull ones. I think of understanding like a certain type of gold pigment, with traces of royalty and religion that was stolen from an enlightenment period scroll, guild with quill scratch marks or even Ganesha’s tusk. 

But far from the color of copper buttons used to hold uniformity in place. Ritual met with mounted horses and blue across plains. What about a rivet and iron and wood ribs stretched out for miles that I casually walk from one town to next. 

Train tresses stilt rivers and bodies sliding across each other in golden sunlight. I’ve swam in quarries, surrounded by quartz — rose, Smokey, mixed with calcite. Sometimes iron would mix in a hue nearer to my tenderness. Buttercups are a bit overstated for tenderness. So much joy, they barely contain it. Have you ever looked at a buttercup and not smiled? 

Pyrite fills the streams. Perfect for tenderness. Something ancient and free — healing the jeweled city. 

It is is said that the sun existed in the solar plexus. Agni, the fire of life, extinguished by overindulgence, stoked beyond benefit, crafting a small amount, a hot air balloon to understanding. Through breakdown, into breakthrough  —  enjoying what the morning affords me. A white dawn taking shape. An orb of acceptance.... electricity.