Living Canvas

My canvas of layered burials started off
as a seaside beach of sandcastle dreams,
where memories began,
and growing up seemed a fantasy.

There was the time the artist layered over me
a circus ring where red-nosed clowns
came from a minuscule car,
showing children and adults roaring with laughter.

Yet…

Like so many canvases,
I wasn’t delivering his message,
his purpose,
his worthiness,
always short of critical praiseworthy acknowledgment.

But today…

Today, I’m a big-time gesso-layered surreal fantasy,
barren of expression, save the drumstick trees
strategically placed,
as the barren landscape creation waits patiently,
for patrons, students, curators
and critics alike to get it.

And there you both sit,
your haunches getting numb,
your eyes fixed on my canvas,
ears alert with dogged attention,
listening to the images’ cock-a-doodle
reverie only the two of you can imagine.

We wonder, don’t we,
if the artist hears the weeping
of so many buried emotions
painted over and over,
cast-aside dreams unfulfilled,
dashed hopes and trust left homeless,
blanketed feelings wanting only to be loved.

Hopefully, he’ll not forget my overly stretched canvas life 
is starting to succumb to this heavy load

of severed dreams of everything and everybody…

Well, time runs out,
you know?

The attentive dogs tilt their heads
and continue gazing at this latest iteration

and its compelling vision

perhaps only a mother and dogs can appreciate.