an ordinary painting

An Ordinary Painting


A bland painting on our wall, a tied up rowing boat,
a boat house, fjord salt sea that didn’t look inviting,
and grass that looked artificial, a cold sun and a hazy
in two boys in the row boat and a girl with tanned legs
sat on a stone, slum children happy to be on holiday.
The sun looked warmer now and the haze had gone
and the sea was teaming with marine life. Pleased
I decided to add more things next day, but when new
day came and I looked at the painting again it was as
empty as before I began adding life to it.

But wait, the boat had sunk and just below the surface
of the shimmering sea, the boys floated- eyes lifeless
and open- inside the boat house I could just make out
the girl hanging from a beam. The painting exuded
coldness, the sea whitened to ice so intense that it
cracked and the whole picture fell into a deep abyss.
A piece of cardboard, enclosed by a gilded frame,
on its empty surface I painted galloping white horses,
flaring nostrils and flying mane, a standard painting
of the type decorating the walls of homes, and it was
still there next day and the days thereafter.