Solitude Standing
(sold)
When you edit now what you had written 100 moods ago, your writings become so boringly uniform and predictable, as if one flavor dominates all the seasons; as if you have flattened the development of your creation, and composed your piece over one single octave.
Sadika
(sold)
We all need an anchor in our lives.
We hope it’s not a person—
so we won’t lose it.
Maybe it’s a skill,
a forgiving hobby,
a talent that doesn’t betray us.
Something we can return to,
again and again,
a self-sustaining joy—
a quiet, perpetual happiness
that asks for nothing but our presence.
4o
Crystal Ball
(sold)
Looking to the side of the road, right at the corner before making an abrupt turn, I saw her:
an older lady — not too old —
dressed in a wide, round house robe.
She was very round,
sitting quietly on the balcony, facing her own walker.
Her grandchildren — or maybe they were nieces and nephews — came one by one,
leaning in to give her a kiss
before moving on.
She was being skipped.
They were all headed somewhere.
But not her.
It made me think of that same morning —
how I, too, had been left on the side.
Lately, the invitations to join hiking or biking trips had stopped.
My knees, withering quietly, had excused me from the group.
It started to seem natural for them to say goodbye and move on.
I’d joined the others who wait.
We’re told the hike is two hours long.
Wait here, please.
Here’s the Wi-Fi password.
You can have coffee, or something to eat.
So I sat.
With a few elderly ladies.
It didn’t seem to bother them — they were used to it.
There were also two moms with newborn babies.
They weren’t hiking either.
They, too, were on pause —
tethered by bodies that needed rest or feeding or simply time.
My Naughty Madonna
(70cm x70cm, acrylics)
Many times, it’s the brush itself—
its smoothness,
the way its bristles gather and bend,
the tilt of the heel where the handle meets the head,
the weight,
the grip—
these quiet predispositions begin to dictate the composition
before we’ve even made a stroke.
4o