Painting Alone

He is himself a painting, Sitting there on a painters stool upon the cliff's edge jutting out over a vista to the envy of gods where the skies reach down to touch, to but experience this view to capture the soul, Where one could but look into the distance to drift across the world and savor it’s every pleasure and forever be free: With but a look, And he is himself a painting this man who sits with brush in hand, and like a shipwrecked sailor parched and dying of thirst sees before him ocean waters of crystal blue and honey dew and cups in his hands a depthless morsel raises it to yearning lips to drink from the ocean, Just so - this man he lifts his brush and with every stroke his parched tongue laps up the sweetest drops of honeyed milk as indulgent brush laps along the canvas and paint sinks deep into every pore This man, he drinks the ocean; Yet he is himself the painting and when he is done, when his throat is sated He picks up yon coveted ocean and tosses it over the picturesque cliff- down and down it tumbles... ..to crack and shatter upon a mountain of like paintings and this man, who is he himself the painting is a man alone with his scenery A man alone, and he paints for no one and this picture, this lone man with none to savour his plight Sends his brush and his soul over the vista and drowns in the ocean.