“untitled”

I look at the painting
take time to examine
the brushstrokes, the colors
the “structure” so important
( I’ve read in the catalog )
to the artist (whose name
I have never heard before
and which I’ve now conveniently forgotten, or could say
I am struggling to remember -
but that would not be true).
I have never seen
such a beautiful description of a painting:
“Untitled 2: Acrylic on board”.
This says everything you need to know,
wastes no words, frees the viewer (me, you now)
to look and look. So I look
again and then move on
to view “Untitled 3”, “Untitled 4”.
“Untitled 5 & 6”, “Untitled 7a and 7b”
and several “June 1998”
(“June 1998:1”, “June 1998:2”, “June 1998:3” and
all the way through to “July 1998:4” )
I recollect there were , perhaps, a dozen paintings from June,
all “Untitled”, and I began to wonder
what had happened to our painter
that northern summer all those years ago and more,
and where s/he was now, and
as I was wondering, I looked out of the window
in the side wall of the small gallery
and saw sheep running across the hillsides
and could almost hear the dogs
and the whistle of the shepherd
and the bells clinking through the olives
as the flock moved from one dry pasture
to another in search of
                                    what was the search for
or was it here
                      I remember
that summer when the dazzle hit me full in the eyes
(reaching for words or a breath
trying to echo the rise and fall of your song
heard only once through the trees
or when you catch a glint of river or hear voices or sense
woodsmoke
on the breeze
far across the valley
and you reach for a brush
and paint)

Where To Now?

we shall run and run and run
and reach home dripping with sweat
and drink your lemonade from huge jugs
on the trestle tables planted in the shade

and then as the sun begins to linger
behind those huge trees on the skyline
we’ll have more time to chat, perhaps,
and if the moments like this remain to us,
we’ll share this memory and that
and think of others in the fading light
at the end of the long summer skies
as the mosquitoes start to bite