familiar

I used to paint.
That was my default pleasure, but I seldom kept any for myself.
My grandmother once remarked after visiting my home that there was nothing in it to show people I was an artist. I thought about that and realized her comment meant more than it seemed to at first glance. It wasn't just an absence of my own artwork in my home that she was referring to, but an absence of that very personal statement ones home eventually wears with the passing of time. Those clues about who we are and what we value that surround us, that define us, comfort and even inspire us.
She would be pleased now I think.

I've written about this series of bird paintings; gifts to my parents once upon a time.
They have returned to me like homing pigeons.
I haven't hung them up and I wondered tonight why that is?
It's because they mean Birch Island to me I think.
Because they represent my parents as a couple, as a pair, happily living in the woods, surrounded by birds.
There is a time for everything and one day, it will seem like just the right time to hang them up on my walls and take joy.

The voice of birds in always in the air
Even here in town.
Crows are heckling cats.
Hummingbirds are thrumming amidst the foxgloves.
Sparrows are chattering.
Starlings, with their chameleon song, bubble and whistle.
The distant trees are never still.
In their top branches I see  familiar silhouettes.

And against the afternoon and evening sky, birds bank and dip and soar.