The Painter's Love

By M. Jay Mansfield

I went to paint you...
I started a thousand times...
Wrong hue..
wrong light....
too small too large....
a thousand times....
should it be day..
no the sun wouldn’t compare...
a scene at night...
no, no, you would blind.....
at dusk afire...
yes, but hands seem to bind....
I start and stop...
I gaze and pray.....
resume...
and curse...
My skill to weak...
or is it my mind....
nothing can compare....
to any of our sweet time....
I raise the brush again....
and slowly I weep...
I cannot capture you ....
all that I seek....
I draw the scene of lily’s and dew...
and place you there...
but, you seem to move...
you’re too lively..
or I am too slow....
the more I try...
the futility grows...
I think of all the things I wish to add...
your smile, your laugh....
your love for your Dad...
the soft spoken kitty words....
or the playful dogs-scold....
what you claim are weaknesses....
I see as strengths untold.....
your frailty?...
a delicate cage for a most precious soul...
the times you made fun of me....
seem to remind.....
of a gull's laughter at the sea’s of time...
you knew the humor that I could not find....
and now that I’ve seen it....
I fear, I have no more time....
I love and I slave..
and yet my canvas is bare...
for no matter what I gave...
not one bit can compare.....
So I paint not a picture....
Of the one I adore....
not a thing I could get you...
no, not nary a store....
so where can I find...
a gift for just you....
that sparkles in kind.....
no, not a thing is as bright...
as the sweet love of mine...
so I beg you forgive...
a clumsy man's pride....
at thinking to give....
a gift just as bright....
stroke after stroke...
the painter did try...
till his heart, it broke...
and he sat and cried..
his hands they lay lifeless...
head hung down low....
for you are so precious...
to all ends he would go....
but nothing was left....
not a thing he can show....
and though it’s not much....
he simply gives,
all of his love....

(12-21-01)