Winter
Fifty six. Stained coveralls from last year's dirt. Matted wool sweater covered in mystery marks atop layers of underthings in anticipation of sun. Thrice covered unwashed Jupiter hair...expansive doesn't even begin to describe it.
Forty three and overcast skies beckon inevitable rain. Such is October and the settling in of Scorpio season. Go deep. Go in to get out.
The colder seasons are reserved for mining. Depths dug, scraped, and bloodied. Ideologies bent beyond recognition and use. And you thought the winter was useless. Silly, frivolous you.
I can't NOT see art. I know no other view than beauty. I swear the cosmos is not a big enough canvas.
At age seven, I won my first art contest; beating out every other contestant from kindergarten to high school, from all 7 Hawaiian islands. The reward? My artwork framed and hung in the Governor's office, a picture with the Governor, and the usual 15 minutes of fame in a second grade classroom. A vision of blues, greens, hints of red and orange is all that remain of that day - the picture long gone and memory left to a task beyond its capacity. I had "seen" myself, at that young age, living in SoHo New York, abiding in a loft with huge windows and acres of floor space to dance between paintings. I rarely bathed, ate, or drank as that was time away from expression. My hair...I did not know I had any to tend to...such was the seven-year-old-vision of my adult self.
Life now bears a deceptive resemblance to its fifty year old counterpart. Looking closer, I see the unwashed hair, water as the only source for thirst, once-a-day meal - just enough to stave off death and its warriors of hunger and dehydration.
This is my welcome to the clouds and dark days of winter.
Shroud me in canvasses luscious and free,
wild expressions of audacity.
Whisk me away to the blackest of voids,
and cook me through til' charred ruins.
Ah, winter.
