One Brush Paints, The Other Longs for the Hand
I
All day I watched the wind in the meadow,
a paintbrush collecting pollen.
It dipped and swirled, then died down,
retreating to the inner world to paint children.
II
The wind kept running out of pigment
and coming back for more.
I sat there all day waiting,
but though I felt it brushing alongside,
I never felt its bristles in me.
I knew why, but didn’t want to believe.
III
I could no more impregnate the orchard
than I could my wife,
whom I told of the brush
and my day in the meadow watching it.
Her face aged five years as she said,
there are too many of us already.
I nodded.
She believed this wholeheartedly,
and I thought imitation
would teach me to be a believer, too.
Ricky Ray lives with his wife and his old brown dog in the old green hills of the Hudson Valley. He is the author of Fealty (Diode Editions, 2019); Quiet, Grit, Glory (Broken Sleep Books, 2020); and The Sound of the Earth Singing to Herself (Fly on the Wall Press, 2020), a finalist for The Laurel Prize. Follow his travels at rickyray.earth