HAPPINESS/WISH

At the artists colony there are some rainy days and many bright days. I see them often from the one long tall window in my quarters.

I wear black slip-on shoes with thin soles.
I take long walks in the shoes and wash them once during my two month stay.
By the end they are paint splattered, dirty and torn and I cut a piece of them to keep before putting them in the incinerator with the set of clothes I have worn all month long.

I stand naked under the late September stars watching the other fire we have built on the hill near the field. Into it also goes the detritus from my cleaned studio. Most of the work produced now hangs in a hall, or given away to accompanying artists.

I had loosely packed one suitcase. A large canvas carry trunk with things that I planned on using up completely or re-purpousing- either with an established method, or a new one.

My computer and classical music.
A small plant. Paper. Colors.

There are brief meetings and some stretch into long meetings with the flavor of our company. I learn new framing skills and watch live dance performances.

I memorize a few of my own poems and subsist on tea and light evening meals.
There is a library. Vast, and in its vastness I resist the urge to consume it all.
I complete my sketchbook and model a few times for the resident sculptress.

The hottest day comes and I exhaust myself with swimming. Staying up all hours with the typewriter and an oil lamp that night. Typing into the frozen dawn.

On other nights the wine is white and glitters in my stomach as it does in my glass against the single work lamp that burns a same quiet, consistent burn.

I have eliminated more writing from a stock of old poems and stories. Recycled some ideas and forgotten others. Ready again to return to the arms of the outside world.

From a new list of all the art projects I'm interested in, I've already accomplished 4 or 5 of them. Some repeatedly, and into a series.


I light a candle, and my body feels the light from the candle.

I am as light as the candle.