Blended Life

The canvas is blank, but it isn’t empty.

There’s a form to be painted, a shape to emerge,

Michelangelo’s angel to be carved.

The first wash is Mother,

white on white,

turquoise veins that run like rivers,

copper red covered with false gold.

The second wash is Father,

smooth mahogany brown,

dark chocolate vision,

black as night.

The first blend is something new,

redwood,

a brown berry,

a shy bronze.

It’s a wild thing, uncertain of its place.

Too formless without a light to anchor its shade.

The second blend is something old,

bitter chocolate shot through with copper,

off white which darkens to olive,

the deep brown of earth that stares out into the world anew.

It’s a quiet soul, weighted down with age.

It’s the angel taken shape.

The mixing is done.

The experiment over.

Pictures hang in life’s gallery,

And people wander by to touch, to curse, to stare.

The blends live on, scuffs of life on frames,

and wait to fade away.