Perhaps I’m not as curious as I once was.
Perhaps I’m just more cautious.
Years ago, I can see how I might have made more of an effort.
Use my social skills to seek out, to eek some kind of an answer.
But art need not have answers.
Art is only…
to be.
Art is.
I have seen her, this artist.
Not often but,
often enough.
She works with an intensity one can feel from considerable distance.
Perhaps this is why I choose to keep mine.
The first time I saw her, I was not alone in my car.
A former housemate and I were making a dump run.
As we made the turn from Ahiki St. onto Hihimanu
she was there, on the corner.
Her corner.
Her paints all laid out on an old bedsheet.
She mixed and splashed furiously.
Bent over in front of another paint-splattered plywood canvas.
She looked at us over her shoulder as we passed.
Her face contorted in pain.
At least… that’s how I saw her.
In Pain.
My (former, for good reason) housemate made some comment about her that I will never repeat.
He knows nothing.
And I?
I have no need to know.
——
Blessed…
m(___)m
