Owl

 Owl / oil on black canvas / 5x5 unframed / $68 includes shipping

sold!  

DURING THE GREAT CONFINEMENT, as my brother calls it, I've learned I can live without some things that, in my pre-covid life, I was pretty sure I needed. 

Art shows. There are some wonderful things about the art shows, some things that I miss terribly - the artist community, the delights of seeing artist and buyer friends, the excitement of showing my paintings to new viewers and old ones. But I do not miss the huge expenses, the giant outlays of energy, the exhausting days spent on 90-degree pavement or in brutally shadeless parks or parking lots. 

Lunches out. I enjoyed my lunches out with friends - but they broke up my painting days even more than I suspected they did. Having entire stretches of days to work is a blessing. My friends here are by and large retired, and tend not to remember that I'm still working. Still earning a living. 

Going INTO WalMart. I started using WalMart pickup long before the covid, but with two exceptions, that's the way I've shopped since March. It's great. 

Hair dye. Yup. The covid has helped me make peace with my gray/white/whatever hair. 

Starbucks. Or Dunkin' Donuts, or any takeout coffee. Who knew? Along those lines, turns out I can live easily and happily without half-and-half in my coffee. Back to black, as I drank it for the first 60 years of my life. 

There is plenty that I miss these days, every day - but plenty that I'm not. And I am delighted to be living a simpler, easier life. 

What have you found you can live just fine without? 

***

For Today

The Owlets at Nightfall

   The sun is sinking. Each minute the air darker. The night

thickens near the ground, pulls my body down to it. And if my body

is earth, then what? Then I am down here, thickening as night 

comes on.

   There are earth things, earthly, joined, they are snuggled down

in one manger, one sweep of arms holds them, one clump of pine,

the owlets sit together in one hollow tree...

   When night comes what has been sun in me all day will drop

underneath the earth, and travel sizzling along the underneath-

ocean-darkness path... There a hundred developed saints lie

stretched out, throwing bits of darkness onto the road.

   At midnight what has been moon in me will also vanish. I will go

down toward utter darkness and find myself in the prison cell with

Joseph. 

- Robert Bly