48 / Drawing
We’re Drawing in the Dark Tonight
She,
standing
there already, silhouetted
against
blazing logs, glimmering
in
candlelight,
breathes
lightly,
easily.
We take a
deep breath, or two. We
dive into the
owl-light,
delve into
the shadows to test
the magic of
art’s darkest chromas.
There’s lamp
black, coal black, tar, and Mars black,
smoke, soot
and bone;
there’s
ebony, jet, and raven’s wing,
velvet, vine,
and sloe.
Enchanted, we
push the dusty black of charcoal
with our
fingers,
we pool
the liquid
blacks of ink with a brush,
we butter
taut white
canvas with slow oodles of black paint.
Life drawing –
a charmed
alchemy on paper,
an enchanting
fool’s errand,
a bewitching
wild goose chase,
that snatches
at our breath and
binds fast
our hearts;
for we must
ever try, and fail, to grasp
these
fleeting shadows - somehow - to fix
the fragility
of her being, in
this moment,
on
this paper.
