In an empty old flaking garage
On a lonely, dusty shelf
A dreaming new Picasso’s tools,
Told another side to Grandpa’s self.
He thought one day when he could quit,
He’d explore the remembrances in his heart,
And put them down to be found,
Leaving his family his mental “art.”
He never learned to read and write,
A calloused hands man was he,
But he had an eye and feelings, too,
Longing to say what he’d seen.
He painted one of a covered wagon
He recalled when he was a child,
With pansies growing around its wheels,
Along with bluebonnets wild.
He painted a peachtree from golden fall,
And a mound of yellowing grass,
Where ran a boy, his firstborn son,
Gone now with his own pretty lass.
Two pictures in his personal trunk,
Then winter came and claimed him,
Dusty and silent are his brushes,
He wears now a jeweled diadem.
By Dee (dee23@hotmail.com)
Just Old Cans
Just old cans there
brushes that are bare
Spiders spun webs around
They ceep but there is no sound
How long have they stood there
By Mercedes (Mercedes1947@gmail.com)
Just Old Cans
The light from the north window arrives every day as usual. Narrow stairs that rise to the third story and his attic studio are seldom used now. An unfinished painting, the one of his granddaughter ends abruptly in the same way his life ended on that rain slick highway.
His retreat from a world not only spinning away from him but spinning out of control, has surrendered to the cold and foggy dampness of Monterey. Squatters who, in the absence of the radiating oil heater that kept him warm and cozy all year, have taken over every corner.
His canvas and his brushes wait for his return.
By Cottage Lady (Patience@bresnan.net)
Portrait
With the brush he had painted her face,
so full of serenity and grace,
with the pens he had written her love letters,
journaled his thoughts of love and loss.
His hands now crippled with arthritis
can neither paint nor write,
but nothing can erase his memories
of his beloved wife.
The cups and mugs with brushes,
pens and pencils, wrapped with spider webs,
sit silently, knowing their time is past,
usefulness done, his work finished at last.
