While I was painting in the kitchen

While I Was Painting In The Kitchen

A gentleman’s voice from a floor or two below
rang out like my grandfather’s voice.

And I was a little kid,
laughing at the tricks he liked to do with his cane,
and he was my abuelito.

I stopped and stared out the window,
but I didn’t allow my eyes to adjust from their
old vantage point,
No longer on the drying titanium white,
nor on the beige brick below,
but on something in between,
and nothing at all.

I was of some quiet age,
when my Mother still combed my hair,
parted down the left side,
a clean part that made me look like
a 1940’s movie star.
I loved life,
and I loved everything.

And then my eyes caught the bricks in front of me.
I thought back to those days of youth –
though I am still quite young right now –
Where have they gone?

He loved hot black coffee,
with sugar stirred right in,
by a tiny tinkling teaspoon,
that would drive everybody crazy.

He loved his orange marmalade,
over slightly blackened bread.

And he wore a three piece suit during the dead of summer.

He was my abuelito.
And I needed a smaller brush
if I wanted to paint these trees right.
The voice is gone now.
And I paint with my fingers.