The Painter

Sitting between the sea n the buildings

she enjoyed painting the sea's portrait

but just as children imagine a prayer

is merely silence

she expected her subject

to rush up the sand n seizing a brush

plaster its own portrait on the canvas

so there was never any paint on her canvas

until the people who lived in the buildings

put her to work: "try using the brush 

as a means to an end

select for a portrait

something less angry n large n more subject

to a painter's moods or perhaps to a prayer"

how could she explain to them her prayer

that nature not art

might usurp the canvas?

she chose her husband for a new subject

making his vast like ruined buildings

as if, forgetting itself, the portrait

had expressed itself without a brush

slightly encouraged she dipped her brush

in the sea, murmuring a heartfelt prayer:

"my soul when i paint this next portrait

let it be you who wrecks the canvas"

the news spread like wildfire through the buildings

she had gone back to the sea for her subject

imagine a painter crucified by her subject!

too exhausted even to lift her brush

she provoked some artists leaning from the buildings

to malicious mirth: "we haven't a prayer

now, of putting ourselves on canvas,

or getting the sea to sit for a portrait!"

others declared it a self-portrait

finally all indications of a subject

began to fade 

leaving the canvas

perfectly white

she put down the brush

at once a howl, that was also a prayer

arose from the overcrowded buildings

they tossed her

the portrait, from the tallest of the buildings

and the sea devoured the canvas n the brush

as though her subject had decided to remain a prayer

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Quesheira Sayang k0rang ^_^

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