the painter's pain: laws of reflection

the painter's pain: laws of reflection

Ever since she left his side

to lie in a covered, colder bed,

he found he could not mix his reds

and yellows the way he had before,

when he could summon suns to bounce off

the canvas, filling rooms with light.

They'd moved him down a couple floors

to assisted living when she’d left,

after some prodding from their daughter

that he’d need help with daily things

like baths, and he'd agreed to ring

for Peggy when he needed to hold

a hand down lobby stairs, but he

had never thought his art would suffer

loss of life. But now, as he holds

his brush to caress the page like he

was wont to do in the Bay St. house --

painting in the sun-filled room,  

across the hall hearing her hum

“This Little Light of Mine” to one

of their napping children -- his fingers go    

stiff, and angrily he douses               

the canvas in paint before he turns

in for the night, mad at a world

in which he's rendered powerless  

to create. The light was lost the day

she left. An object cannot reflect that

which it itself does not possess.