The Fool's World

The Painter: Still Life 

  poem by Beth Brown Preston

  From the Archive of Saint Augustine's Magazine
 Volume 2, No. 1 (2023).

 You sat with brushes in hand 
and the light flowing above and below, 
the prayer like paper, 
the light illuminated all our sacred trees. 

Somehow, we forgot all our raucous 
and joyous past loves
when I asked you to listen 
for the screen door’s slam 
and the call to supper 
as I brought you the evening meal.

And then there was that folio of your recent sketches: 
so many similar dark faces filled with joy.

I gazed at the rich, brown texture of watercolors on the page, 
a man’s tortured face, his beard, his glowing tough bronzed skin. 

You said it was a portrait of your brother, 
who died overseas during a rain of fire in the Vietnam war.
And you put down your brushes 
to confess we were going to start life all over again 
without waging the private wars that keep us together.