Wincing at Light

So you don’t feel like I’m completely ignoring you, I’ll give you this.

D.

——————————

A Thousand Words (Oil on Canvas)

I took a walk in the woods today,
thinking about you,
gathering dry wood as I went.
Crooked sticks, mottled with age,
dark with rot, pitted from the weather.
Metaphors for friendship, I suppose.

Down to the dry creek bed,
seeking out stones,
from the root tangled earth,
water worn and heavy, bones of the earth,
naked along the surface of the uneven ground,
shifted from their course by the vagaries
of evil weather.
Metaphors for trust, I suppose.

I carried them out in stages,
a reverse course ritual,
placed them with care, a rough circle.
Inside I built a temple of kindling:
Deer moss under twigs under sticks.
Metaphors for the layer of years, I suppose.

I struck a match, hovered over the smoke,
tended to hungry tongues of elemental fire.
I thought about you.
I thought about honor.
I thought about responsibility.
I thought about being there when you hurt.
I thought about betrayal.
I thought a lot about betrayal.
Metaphors for desire, I suppose.

I took out my pocketknife
and I shredded the canvas of the picture
you had painted for me, that had hung on my wall
for almost twenty years. I broke down the frame
with my bare hands. And piece by piece,
I consigned our past to the flames.
It caught quickly, almost greedily, a surge
of heat and smoke. The canvas burned
and burned, colors peeling, wood snapping,
phantoms of a deceitful past crying out
like the dryads of an axe-felled willow,
Until nothing remained but ashes and grief.
Metaphors for the end.