En Plein Air
by Finn Maxwell
Lately, I’ve been yearning to obtain
the graceful sorrow of La Pietà in my painting.
The marble shone like a tear.
I have been believing in other myths...
If you look up through the windchime's' wooden tunnels,
you will hear the ocean
and the little boy who steals buckets from it.
And dashes away. And hides.
When I am in the open air,
waves come down upon the shore and mold
into the hands of prayer. The nails,
the pale wrinkles of the tide,
dig into wet sand and beg for penance.
My paint is dried before I can lay it. The ocean
chases the boy. My strokes are messy, and
the painting is muddled into a single shape
that melts from the canvas like an old candle
long abandoned in the good night.