The Mantel Cracked

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A timber house built by a calloused hand

The numb hand that built the stone hearth

The foundation of both laid on uneven ground

By a hand too tempted  by haste to mind

Too few nails joining plank to beam

Nor enough mortar to bed stone

Too much need makes way for mindless haste

Always the less in building the less in standing

The hand no more careless than its mind

A mind lost in need unaware of spirit

Spiritless homestead where children dare be born

In a home that has need yet not time

No time for nurturing by the light of the hearth

Soulless fire giving no warmth yet stoking want

A fireplace lacking the ability to feed the souls

of the family starving within the uneven home

Leaving only ghosts who wanted for so much

That the Mantel cracked beneath the load

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Ungreateful tied hands

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How tranquil the painter upon the hill

Backdrop of Mountains overlooking ocean

Such gifts he is given

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Standing in tall grass where tall trees once stood

I need to create but this canvass is not mine

These tools are forced on me by bigger people

The frame is cheap pine and weak joined

The canvass unevenly stretched with too little gesso

Two colors on a plastic pallet

One brush

What joy if there is no freedom

So I paint a cave within a Mountain cove

A place to hide

A place to hibernate

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…and the painter is gone

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