me, high up in the aleppo pine, my roost with a view
Mexico and the cement river between
the teeming masses, the freeway and the mountain
the mountain, a granite monolith outside my windows.
i spend the day lost in art, bills and news of something new.
Surrounded by my reference books, my beads, my wire, my art supplies
and my chirpy bird Sky who sings along with Sting.
You down below, in your cave-like space with few windows
except for the one in your studio also facing South, like mine.
There the easel holds the latest creation.
I can peek in the window from my perch and see...
the masking tape technique you have perfected
the drips like Jackson, adopted and yours now
the geometrics (you said you can't let them go...yet.)
You have a knack of disappearing in a flash
especially if i want or need you. I search for you.
But, off tinkering in your eBay closet
pouring over old rock posters from the sixties or other bits,
ephemera you are prone to collect. Paper and canvas
surround you in your hole in space. You live like a mole in
a papery nest.
Like Georgia and Stiglitz, me collecting twigs and stones
or looking through the branches of the dying Mimosa
from my perch on the deck. Me in my New Mexico
you in your New York. You taking pictures in the yard below me
the bird bath and a geode looking all like the moon and the universe.
You filling the dog water dish and wandering about the yard,
smoke in hand or lips. I like to watch you.
We like to live in separate spaces together, together but apart.
I see your back more than your front. I memorized it,
hunched over the computer, streaming...philosophistic or just
working. I watch your back.
I chirp like my bird when happy and crawl away into my space
when sad, closeted in my studio in the pine
hoping creativity will heal me.
You are more even, more middle way, neither up nor down
I like that about you...
I like what you like: Miro; Santa Fe Canyon Road; museums and galleries; Caulder and Rothko; Dan Namingha the contemporary Indian art man; Chihuly and glass; quiet spots with a view; sunsets and rises; the Stones, Miles, the Dead and Van the Man...beauty and beauties in all forms.
We are alike but different. We like to talk, companionable, content like lovers, friends and neighbors. We can argue civily, most of the time.
I live upstairs, you live in the basement. We eat, sleep and make love in the same spaces. Together but separate.
Like long, lost friends, we have found each other in this time. I like you, you like me. Like river and stone, together but separate.
