Things are shaping up for the trip. The ticket arrived yesterday which opened up a great new door of reality and nervousness. As I get things attended to, packed and done, other jobs that I have pushed aside previously are now rearing their heads from the shoved aside chaos. This is a case in point.

Some months ago Bill Elmore, the artist of this charcoal drawing, brought it to me saying he had the feeling that the work needed words with it. Either an explanation of the worman' s grief or poem to round it out. He felt his lines and shapes were not saying enough. The picture has hung on my workroom wall for months and nothing has moved within me.

The other night I was watching The Answer Man and during one of the long pauses while the video stops to download another chunk because out internet connect wobbles and fades, some words began to come to me. I am not sure any of these have lasting value, but I got what I was given.

charcoal

forming her shape

of sadness

the accident

the guilt

~*~

a line

in charcoal

the loss

of a gift

the guilt

~*~

shadows

of charcoal

shape

the loss of a gift

an endless line

~*~

charcoal

beyound the line

of loss

the gift replaced

by silent space

Is this enough or do you need the story? Just a week before this woman was scheduled to model for the figure class, she let her boyfriend park his Harley in the living room. Her two-year old child tried to pull himself up to the bike and it tipped over crushing the child and killing it.

I am trying to keep my own ghostly travel fears at bay while focusing on this harsh reality.