He traced her figureOn his heart With charcoal. The fired remains Of yesterdays perfectly perceived And profoundly destroyed. It was nice to have a another subject, But mostly his thoughts were on the medium.

After a time The bitter black lost dominion To the beauty of her form: Dead grit Came to soft life As curious fingers Feathered heavy outlines Into beating tissue.

He moved to watercolors When shades of gray Could no longer contain his vision. Rough sketches Were replaced with impressionistic hopes, And light was everywhere.

Time sharpened edges, Made features more familiar. He got into acrylics Knowing faults Only added to reality; That truth bound better than fantasy, And that patience Made for truer focus.

When it was time for portraits, (When he could get the three girls To sit quietly For more than five minutes) He brushed oils Across the linen of his life, And felt, for brief moments, Like a master.

They spread his remains From a mountain in Boulder Across an amazing blue sky. Each one held a gallery Inside Of the love he had given. Reflecting on the art of their own lives As a cold gust stirred, For a moment they could see A figure Traced in ashes, And they smiled.