Amateurs All Along

{For Julia,

For those times when 

we just sit and 

"remember when..."

and

"wonder what..."

and laugh through tears at

life,

getting no more clear 

as time goes.

So

we just sit and

paint like we are five years old -

as we should.

much love,

C}

Amateurs All Along

The 
     painting of a pot
                          not
                              turning out
               quite like
               the life
               that you
          sip on after serving
                           (or being served)
               tea with friends and
                                   other annoying people -
     picturing Polish pottery,
                    but 
                    out of
          your hands
                         create country with
          your hands
                         and 
     burn
          your mouth 
                         while
          sipping from life served,
                                        which can
     burn 
               like a flame flickering and fueling our
               grumblings and giggles - us
          amateur painters
                         on the canvases of life and
     burning
          with hope that our conversations
          warmed by tea
                              and glow of beeswax
          warm us with the
                              colours of our
                              collective creations - 
                                                             amateurs all along the way.

 - C. Gray
     

The Reasons of the Birds

{spontaneous and simple;

recorded and read

the next morning

in memory

of a

great and small

memory

of the night before

the birds and friends

added to the beauty and mystery

of life.

Thank you,

 - C}

silhouettes of five hundred and forty seven crows
outlined against the flat dark gray,
perched in tableau
on the tips of winter trees,
resting on the fingertips of branches... in the
middle of the city.

she came to fetch me from the
street - eagre to
share the
stillness of the crows...

standing to
marvel, from the glow of hospital parking lot lights -
shivering with each attempt to take a picture; eyes
searching our screens,
squinting to see the
scene on the other
side of the lens; failing to capture a
moment while
missing the
minutes and the chance to
marvel the
mystery of the crows.

sitting, staring,
searching through all the reasons of the birds... perhaps a
meeting of the
minds; perhaps they know
something of the end of the world - keeping
secrets from us; perhaps their beauty hovers over as a cloud of death, in
solemn
silence for their view; perhaps they are watching over the
maple
syrup taps; perhaps it is a
singles
meeting for crows; perhaps...

she said,
"you
know,
you don't have to
know the
why..."

see and
simply be -
no pictures
nor reason captured in this
moment, framed and
standing for itself -
sit,
spirit free to
wonder at, and rest
with the birds - in awe -
without the
why...
of all the reasons
of the birds.

***

I came to
fetch her
from the
street - eagre to
share the
stillness of the crows...

"oh,
that happens all
the
time,"
she said.