An Artist's Ribbon

There were no ghostly fireplaces that represented her dreams, no loved one who vanished forever in that space between breaths and conversations, no conversations returned unopened and stamped unable to deliver.
And within the lines of the artist's palm there was discovered a sea of love perhaps to be taken away once again, a prophecy of validity,a scorn from him she did not expect, and maybe a truth that she thought would triumph over the rulings of a fate that she remembered as a cold word exhaling from his heart. And maybe there were tickets that fell from heaven like snowflakes encircling a cloud on a dreary day. She did not know and was left wondering. The artist turned and looked up at the blank lifeless windows yawning within themselves. The war between art and science had left no visible trace that a stranger could see. The inner courtyard of the soul at that moment was as peaceful as a calm sea held up to a reflection in glass or a smile that slides across a freshly waxed floor.
Then the hallways opened up to a roofless sky and lines were drawn on the palm of her hand. Her suitcases of emotion were unpacked with all their angles exposed to words that were neatly folded resisting creases; each angle carrying a syllable that followed a word that followed a conversation that somehow in a stream of air would be lost upon him. He would reinterpret the folds and the creases of words that she spoke carrying them to create angles of resistance in his heart. She would follow the tone in his voice weaving a thought that maybe would stir his heart enough to know what he felt, what she felt in between the pauses. The passion would stir slowly and an ember would glow then hold their words together for splits of seconds like dust flying across a road on a sunday afternoon. The artist would clutch the ribbon that trailed within their conversation over an airless line hearing him breathe through an invisible wire. And when his words were harsh or condescending, the artist would take a step backwards toward the fence she knew so well and unravel the words and the tone of their harshness. And when he would ask her if she knew this author or that, these were authors already read by the artist in growing steps of time when she jumped rope across a leaden sky. And he would think she knew not the authors he quoted. But she did. It was only the space of his tone that prevented her from discussing any further what she already knew. His harsh tone sometimes made her drift away. But then he would speak of love and his passion would grow and the artist would allow the music of his now softly spoken words wash over her like a new rain capturing the prisms of light that fell oh so gently across her face.
She ran to the phone as it rang at 10:30 or thereabouts in the morning after that night on the phone with him. She heard him say it was wonderful..he would find a way to hold her in a place far away, and she smiled because what she wanted to hear was his voice without her speaking, without her answering the phone. She thought maybe he knew she was there standing so still by her phone in a room where sunlight fell golden upon old oak floors never refinished and lace curtains from Iceland hung upon old leaden windows; their whiteness pure light in itself. She heard his voice melodic and loving and held onto a ribbon that twirled through her fingers across the glass of the old swedish cabinet that had been with her forever. Then he paused . He knew she was there standing listening to his voice. She wanted to just absorb the tone of his words without answering the phone, without the social conventions of "hello". And he drew a breath, a breath she echoed in a room with warm oak floors and woven lace curtains from her time in another country and she mouthed the words to the air between him and her, ". Ég er bylta í ást með Þú. " and then Ég ást Þú over and over again like a chant or a hymn. And she wondered if he could hear her breathing the words in a language she learned and then forgot perhaps out of choice except for the words she whispered to a cell phone, to a man far away who heard her cry unabashedly and emotionally naked one night when her world had collapsed inside of her like a rose folding in upon itself ; its petals torn from their very soul. Then with a whisper he said ,"talk to you later" and she smiled to hear the notes of his voice trace the lines of sunlight that fell across golden floorboards; their very strength holding yet another breath. And she whispered it again knowing maybe he could somehow feel she was there on the other side of miles of road and land the words again, "Ég ást Þú". The woven lace curtain on the window closest to her gently blew in a nonexistent breeze that perhaps was the ghost of his emotion or his words . Then she played the message again and smiled hearing the tones in his voice like notes in a composition all held together by the gravity of emotion. The sun closed and chased the geometry of the sky..colours folding in on themselves painting images within a wheel that perpetually spun through the human universe. She listened once again, and held the phone close to her ear hearing the pauses that drifted through countless soundbytes like a summer breeze wafting across a meadow. The melody of his voice rose and fell through ghosts from the past within walls where brambles grew and birds flew in between this world and the world that was now gone.She drew the soundbytes upon her canvas with paint from a midnight sky and followed the lines of the brush that came from her heart through her hand to the white of cloth. Sheets and bedclothes that were hung to dry upon a single strand of yarn in a moss covered treeless yard flew toward the sun as a bird grappled with the dynamics of flight. She watched them chase the shadows of poets who protectively held inspiration like a mother holds a baby swaddled in blankets; each gesture and cry a cause to love.
She listened to music that was torn from the soul of a musician as she painted the lines that had no lines; colours that faded into thoughts of Rothko.
She barely glanced at the time; only the counting of the grandfather's clock that stood its heaviness upon floors long ago hewn by hand called out the hour. Image after image came forth upon her canvas; all memories strewn across a wind torn landscape she once walked in. The night sky of winter found its way into the abstract angles of her soul; the artist in her impassioned once again by the thought of sea and pellets of ice crystals tearing across the moss covered rocks that was in a place she once called home. Lone streams of cadmium red painted the anger she now felt towards the dreams that were torn from her like ancient coloumns ripped from the sea. Prussian blue and green earth flowed from their prison of factory produced logic unto a painter's knife resting upon her palette. The colours flowed thickly onto layers of oil washed sepia and trailing ghosts of midnight black only to find themselves once again at the beginning of a brushstroke. She looked up through leaded glass to see the sun turn to the beginnings of a new moon as night came to comfort the sounds of her own inner voice...circles surrounding circles in a rhythm upon her canvas; motion without words. Her eyes captured the movement of line as it left her hand to fall from her brush to invisible spaces upon the floor. The dance of paint spattered across the layers of a midnight sky as the floor held the passion of creation. Light fell through her as she became one with her canvas ; works of long gone artists; renoir, rothko, pollock and different artists who were constricted by the lines of realism all haunting her soul. These she rebelled against in moments of fervor when her creativity outlasted passion's glance. These she held close and stared at in museums; their canvases stiffly hung upon cold white walls. She traced their lifeline in the paintings within the artist's soul that were unabashedly conceived with love, and she cried with the thought of their anguish for "living". Their egos stood without lies or social conversations in an effort to alter the world as they saw it not as others saw it.
A bird flew close to the window ledge of her studio confused by the brilliant light of a full moon that ran across the floor and stopped to absorb the sun; a beam of pure white geometry against the backround of words not spoken. Whole conversations were saturated and expelled in art galleries in trendy neighborhoods where artists stood against a backround of convention; glass in hand; perplexed at the people who attempted to explain the "self" of the artist. Buying the artist's soul, amidst copious amounts of chardonnay and delicate cheeses, paintings were paid for and then hung unexplained upon walls that matched the owner's drapes in houses that didn't care. The collector's ego would wear the cape of ownership at dinner parties and announce the new acqusition never understanding the soul that painted it nor the glance of a new moon as life exhaled a breath of inner storm.
The artist traces her footsteps across the shadows on the floor and exhausted listens to the dawn breaking across the sky...pieces of glass broken into a canvas of colour.