The afternoon of my grandmother’s funeral,

my sisters, mom, nephew, and I

decide to paint with a Bob Ross episode, hoping

to dull our grief with bright colors, to soothe

our broken spirits with his bulbous brown hair,

his velvet voice and reassurances. The painting

seems simple enough: a cabin in the woods

in the light of the moon, a peaceful scene

easily accomplished in a half-hour episode.

Later, thirty minutes stretches into three hours

of pausing and painting, rewinding and repainting,

until falling away one by one we give up the ghost,

each departing the table with some distorted portrait

of our grief. My cabin in the woods looks like

an outhouse, my sky a lake upon the ground.

Soon only my mother sits alone, striving for perfection

on the day she’s buried her mother’s ashes, an interment

doubly done, an ending soon to be etched in stone.

I watch her paint and wonder what future afternoon

I’ll cue an eternal episode, pick up my brush,

and try to put pain to canvas, letting Bob

lull me into thinking

just for a moment

that even the trees could be happy that day.

————————————–

Trystan Popish called us from Denver, CO.

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