Painting the weather

I have never seen my image

Except as a friendly reflection

In rivers and pools.

I paint when the sun allows.

There is a moment when there is no sun.

Just a moment.   Wait a while.   No one

Can deny that now and again the sun's

Not there.   It's true you know, it's gone!

But this is also true: it will return.

I am a man of clouds!

Crowds do not please my eye;

I cannot stand to be

Seen, as I paint them fly

By.   With them I set my scene.

And what if the wind whips waves

Into white-topped cascades

Pounding the shore, the cliffs,

Breaking into a rainbow sparkle

As they destroy the work of ages?

I cannot capture these on paper.

The water and the paint have minds

Persistent in their own beliefs.

They lead me across new paths

And into ways I have not known

When I have watched the weather.

Painting "Sunk Island"

I looked up to the skies and there I saw

More colours than I ever thought I knew,

More colours than I recognised before;

I grasped them, held them, made an image true.

Bright blues and reds are laid on yellows, wet,

To run as wet on wet, to blend, until

I see the image that I want; and yet

They run their own way and forever will.

The fields reflect the skies; the waters, still,

Are pierced by weeds and reeds and grasses.

No house, no bird, no sign of life to fill

The scene: and yet life never passes.