Something a little different.

Only the picture painted silently
can make the rain stop falling.

(This is what I told myself that day.)

I had a belief that art would save my life.
Maybe it has—or maybe it’s just prolonged the agony.

Maybe it’s another code to be broken;
but even Jun Togawa dancing through my dreams,
singing in operatic bursts, won’t solve it.

I’ve always believed you should linger
to get the full measure of a piece
or inhabit the space of a dream.

Art is easy;
dreams are harder.

West of my place,
the forest meets the freeway,
giving way to the rush-hour crawl

and rain that won’t stop falling
until silenced by silently painted pictures.

(26 March 2017)