The Painter: Still Life
Poem by Beth Brown Preston
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.
Poem published in The Fool's World precursor
Saint Augustine's Magazine Vol. 2, No. 1 (2023).