Just Jade

A watercolour – not quite
finished, yet signed, just ‘Jade’,
on the easel in my granddad’s
attic, opposite the window.
After all these years, find
it there still.

As a child, I’d brave the cobwebs –
climb the stairs, each visit;
perhaps, she’d be there, this time,
but she never was. “Who is Jade?”
I asked him one day, but he didn’t
reply... only looked at me
in a strange kind of way;

in hindsight though, that look
said more than any words
could ever have, and now,
it’s far too late.

A simple sketch...a vase
of flowers; the artist, whoever
she was, mixing colours as nature
intended – aquilegia reaching out,
groping for another’s velvet touch.

The paint in the pallet, cracked –
sun-dried; an orange beret,
and parasol, with tortoiseshell
shaft, hangs from the hook
on the wall like a question mark.

Clouds across the sun... shadows
come and go...fret the canvas,
transient as lines on her brow,
as I envisage it now;

ash-blonde hair, perhaps, flirting
with a cheek; tongue feathering lip,
deep in concentration...
the swish of sable...

and those green eyes – they must
have been green, it would have
suited her so...saying, “Would I,
care to pose?’