Painting Love

It is slow work, the transformation from chair to art,
from practical to sublime,

Each little section of carving a new color.
Each one a decision, a choice,

something to think on, or at least a choice
between deliberation and mood.

Which is truer to your soul?
Which will make a difference

to the watcher, the viewer, the soul
you gift with your attempt at transformation.

How do you paint love? How do you paint
not just what you feel, but what you want to feel?

And if you get it right, will it be right only for you,
or are you so common others too will hear your song

and sing along? Not in unison,
but in two-part harmony, sweet and true.

You hold your brush. Scan your pots of paint,
too aware the choice matters.

Thin coat? Thick as a politician’s lies?
Soft and subtle? Loud as a tango danced in the diner?

The trouble is you have a vision, but you never know the truth
until the paint dries.

About this poem.

Love, like art, is an accumulation of choices, layer after layer.

The photograph is of a piece of art in process, now finished: a painted carved chair that is one of my favorites.

Tom