David Chorlton's "Still Life with a View"

Birds watch the red rock mountain and a tall, still

palm that feathers the sky. Or do they view 

the hawk to the left of the painting as they belong

to the larger painting with a pear, a stone like a nectarine, 

a pitcher with reflective gleam, branches, and a smaller, 

rounded bird like them? There is a serenity about the household, 

a curtain to the right. At night, does this still life sleep?

And what dreams hear this scene? Are their dreams 

the same as mine that mine the urgencies self-made 

in splintered pieces not at peace? Do they collect themselves 

in one gentle full-fledged day with each fiber performing

what it does? Instead of merely being seen. Would a family be

a collection of parts that find their place? I raced away 

from an arrangement with no fit for me. People watching

things that we could not discuss. Such quiet made me 

broken as I longed for holding in common an imagined canvas 

that I knew only half included blue. Here I see cerulean 

sky that might light the eyes. And ask the painter silently

how to see. Can we recover from unkindness, especially mine? 

I have wept over silence, having lost the ability to hold still 

and perhaps breathe from middle distance as I am. 

A spirit on the lam and hiding hope for another scene 

with mid-day light and a little privacy.